Center for Civil War Research
The Center for Civil War Research is designed to promote a more thorough understanding of the American Civil War, its history and its scholarship, among the various constituencies of the University and the broader community. Our programing includes a biannual Conference on the Civil War, the Wiley-Silver Prize for Best First Book in Civil War History, the annual Burnham Lecture in Civil War History, and research funding for graduate students.
What we do
Conference on the Civil War
Every two years, the center hosts a slate of emerging and established scholars of the Civil War era
Upcoming Events
2025 Conference on the Civil War/Porter Fortune Symposium: New Directions in the Legal History of the Civil War Era
This conference seeks to build on the work of historians who have begun critical re-evaluations of the legal history of the Civil War era. Papers may represent traditional legal histories, as well as military, social, and cultural histories demonstrating Americans’ encounters with the law. The conference features a keynote address by Ariela Gross (UCLA) and a special roundtable with Cynthia Nicoletti (UVA), Gautham Rao (American University), and Anne Twitty (Stanford University).
- October 16, 2025 - October 18, 2025
Latest news
PhD Candidate Matthew Lempke has been awarded the McMinn Fellowship to complete his dissertation on Sherman’s March in three Georgia communities: Griswoldville, Milledgeville, and greater Savannah.
Frank J. Cirillo's The Abolitionist Civil War Wins 2024 Wiley-Silver Prize
The prize committee praised Cirillo's The Abolitionist Civil War: Immediatists and the Struggle to Transform the Union as an "extraordinarily nuanced and well-written analysis" that "contributes significantly to understanding the United States’ failure to make emancipation more meaningful despite the realization of immediatists' decades-long dedication to the slave's cause." The Wiley-Silver Prize is awarded annually to the best first book in Civil War history.
Robert Colby, Associate Director, Publishes New Book on the Slave Trade and the Civil War
Professor Colby's book, An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South was published by Oxford University Press in April 2024. Read an interview with Colby in The Guardian.
Caroline Janney Delivers Lecture on "The Long Journey Home: Lee's Army in the Wake of Appomattox"
In spring 2024, the Center hosted two distinguished speakers, Joseph Glatthaar (UNC), who delivered the Burnham Lecture, and Caroline Janney, John L Nau, III, Professor in History of American Civil War at the University of Virginia. Janney's lecture, held on April 25, 2024, was made possible with the support of the University Lecture Series. Both speakers met over lunch with graduate students from the History Department.
