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, the Harry Owens Civil War Archival Collection, 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
Events
The Center for Civil War Research holds the Burnham Lecture in Civil War History every spring, the Conference on the Civil War every other year in odd years, and awards an annual prize to the best first book in Civil War history. We also partner with other organizations on campus including the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the UM Slavery Research Group, and the Oxford Conference for the Book.
Announcing the Harry Owens Civil War Archival Collection
The Center for Civil War Research is pleased to announce the Harry Owens Civil War Archival Collection, a new partnership with the University of Mississippi Department of Archives and Special Collections. Supported by generous donations from former students of UM history professor Harry P. Owens, the center funds the purchase of archival materials related to the Civil War and Reconstruction eras in Mississippi and the surrounding region. The items purchased with this fund become a permanent part of the library’s research collection, available to students, researchers, and the public. All documents, including the inaugural purchase (a letter describing a Confederate raid on Union supplies in Holly Springs, Mississippi) can also be viewed online. The Center welcomed the Owens family to celebrate the new initiative at a reception in the archives. Read more about the initiative in this UM press release.
Robert Colby in Conversation with Edda Fields-Black at 2026 Oxford Conference for the Book
The Center for Civil War Research sponsored a special panel at the 2026 Oxford Conference for the Book, hosting Dr. Edda Fields-Black (Carnegie Mellon University) in conversation with Robert Colby (University of Mississippi). Professor Fields-Black is the author of Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War (Oxford, 2024), which recieved numerous awards, including the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in History, the 2025 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, and the 2025 Tom Watson Brown Book Award. The Oxford Conference for the Book is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.
Beau Cleland's Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria Wins 2026 Wiley-Silver Prize
The prize committee praised Cleland's Between King Cotton and Queen Victoria: How Pirates, Smugglers, and Scoundrels Almost Saved the Confederacy as a "a wholly original view of the hemispheric conflict" of the Civil War and a "a riveting and groundbreaking book" that "unveils the robust Atlantic alliance between partnerships in the Confederacy and Great Britain." The Wiley-Silver Prize is awarded annually to the best first book in Civil War history. Cleland will be invited to campus to accept his award and speak on his book.
Andrew Boldt Awarded 2025-26 McMinn Fellowship
Andrew Boldt received the McMinn Fellowship for his dissertation on Confederate occupation in southern communities during the Civil War. He will use the fellowship to support a semester of research in spring 2026.
