Reviewed by: A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg. Volume 1: From the Crossing of the James to the Craterby A. Wilson Greene Michael T. Smith A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg. Volume 1:From the Crossing of the James to the Crater. By A. Wilson Greene. Civil War America. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Pp. xvi, 712. $47.50, ISBN 978-1-4696-3857-7.) In this worthy entry in the University of North Carolina Press series Civil War America, A. Wilson Greene, the former executive director of the Pamplin Historical Park and a leading expert on the conflict's pivotal Petersburg campaign, begins what is envisioned as a three-volume work assessing this legendary clash in unprecedented detail. Although this volume is in some ways a conventional military history, paying attention to commanders' personalities, battlefield tactics, and both armies' strategies, it goes beyond this approach in welcome ways. There is considerable attention to the suffering and struggles of civilians in the Petersburg region, many of whom became refugees during the siege, forced to move to makeshift, hardscrabble tent encampments. If they stayed in the city, they were at grave risk of injury due to frequent artillery shelling. There is substantial attention given to the perspectives of the long-suffering common soldiers on both sides, who, as the campaign settled into a grinding siege, faced miserable and dangerous conditions, not always with the greatest of cheer, but with tremendous resilience. There is also abundant attention given to the role of race in the campaign. The presence of African American troops in the Union Army of the James caused fierce hostility among Confederates, contributing to the heinous massacre of African American soldiers after their surrender in the chaotic, disastrous battle of the Crater, rendered here in painstaking and appalling detail. The author's research into a rich variety of primary source material is nothing short of masterful. The book is well written, with many well-chosen quotations and lively prose. Greene offers judicious and persuasive assessments of many lingering controversies from the famous but somewhat underanalyzed campaign, a neglect his work is intended to rectify. He attributes the Union army's somewhat mystifying failure to press its initial attack on the lightly held city in June 1864 partly to the stubborn defense led by the redoubtable creole General P. G. T. Beauregard, but somewhat more to a lack of aggression by Union commander William F. Smith and to his superiors, George G. Meade and Ulysses S. Grant, who failed to exercise close supervision of the critical operation. This failure came despite the fact that the initial Union move to the James River surprised Confederate general Robert E. Lee, who for several crucial days did not fully appreciate the threat Petersburg's garrison faced, or indeed the danger to the Confederate capital itself. Greene also assigns blame for several episodes of mismanaged Union opportunities during the campaign, including cavalry operations and flanking movements, to strained relations among the Army of the Potomac's and the Army of the James's high commands and to Grant's disinclination to question the decisions of his subordinate Meade. Finally and fundamentally, Greene contends that the heavy losses due to Grant's grinding Overland campaign that spring and summer had sapped the morale of Union soldiers and deprived their forces of many of their most able and popular leaders. Still, the Petersburg campaign, for all its missed opportunities, left Union forces in position to capture Richmond, force the surrender of Lee and his [End Page 180]army, end the Civil War, restore the Union, and end slavery, all of which they helped accomplish the following year. The book is a wonderfully detailed and judiciously interpreted overview of the first stages of the campaign, though it ends rather abruptly, leaving some issues presumably to be addressed and assessed in the later volumes, making their hoped-for arrival even more welcome. Michael T. Smith McNeese State University Copyright © 2024 The Southern Historical Association

Journal Article Paul D. Escott. The Worst Passions of Human Nature: White Supremacy in the Civil War North. Get access Paul D. Escott. The Worst Passions of Human Nature: White Supremacy in the Civil War North. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2020. Pp. 227. Cloth $29.95 Michael T. Smith Michael T. Smith McNeese State University, USA Email: mtsmith@mcneese.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 128, Issue 1, March 2023, Pages 490–491, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhad059 Published: 31 March 2023

An educational incubator in Purdue University's Polytechnic Institute has been experimenting with highly integrated methods to facilitate, assess, and evaluate student learning. Comprised of transdisciplinary faculty and students, one of the basic covenants is to intentionally and repeatedly balance Humanities and STEM concepts by way of open-ended problems affecting humanity and the planet. The learning experience environment tries to integrate faculty and students from widely different disciplines in scenarios where cognitive and metacognitive development is encouraged and explored. This special session will engage attendees in examples of activities that can help students become self-aware of the power of music on their physiology and imagination while also integrating problem-solving and other STEM related concepts. Participants will take away ideas and techniques that they can add to their own palette for fostering integrated learning and metacognitive development. This session aligns with FIE's focus on innovations in classroom techniques.

Lincoln’s Two-Faced Hatchet Man Michael Thomas Smith (bio) William Marvel. Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. xvii + 611 pp. Maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $35.00. William Marvel, the author of many books about the American Civil War, in this new biography examines the life and career of Edwin M. Stanton, whose work as Secretary of War in the Lincoln administration led some to hail him as “the organizer of victory” for the Union (p. xv). Marvel finds Stanton to be much overrated by his admirers, both during his own lifetime and in much subsequent historiography. He particularly finds the 1962 biography of Stanton by Benjamin H. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman to be much too favorable. Although conceding that Stanton possessed substantial legal knowledge and administrative ability and was able to manage the War Department far more efficiently than his corrupt, incompetent predecessor Simon Cameron, Marvel for the most part finds little to praise in Stanton’s career and, especially, little to admire in his character. Marvel argues that Stanton consistently and habitually thrived on self-interested deceit and duplicity throughout his life and career. Stanton would tell his powerful legal and political cronies whatever they wanted to hear and assure them that he shared their principles and ideas, presenting himself as a paragon of rectitude and virtue; meanwhile, he shamelessly participating in various behind-the-scenes political cabals aimed primarily at advancing his own interests. Marvel finds that Stanton’s disloyal scheming and intriguing unfairly hurt the reputation of all three presidents in whose cabinets he served. Stanton served as Attorney General in the last days of the James Buchanan presidency, and Marvel contends that he spread exaggerated stories of his own firmness and Buchanan’s cowardice during the secession crisis, which resulted in Buchanan’s competence and integrity being judged even more unfavorably than he deserved. The author finds Stanton to be largely responsible for the wartime civilian arrests and suppression of the antiwar press, actions that mar Lincoln’s record on civil liberties. And he suggests that Stanton’s collusion with and encouragement of unconstitutional tactics by the Congressional Radical Republicans drove a wedge between them and Andrew Johnson, reducing the [End Page 249] likelihood that the president could find an effective way to work with them and contributing to the period’s bitter political polarization. Marvel finds the root of some of Stanton’s character flaws in his childhood and family experiences. He grew up under “the shadow of genteel poverty” in Ohio (p. 5). His father was a physician with a struggling practice during the economic hard times following the Panic of 1819, which left Stanton obsessed with money and status, and willing to do or say virtually whatever it took to acquire and keep both. The author also finds episodes from Stanton’s early forays into politics and a lucrative legal career to be strongly suggestive of his two-faced amorality. Stanton sought favor with rising Ohio political star Salmon P. Chase, assuring the abolitionist leader that he shared his moral abhorrence toward slavery even though a variety of temporizing reasons prevented him from publicly announcing this position. Marvel also examines Stanton’s famous defense of Tammany Hall politician and future Union general Daniel Sickles on murder charges stemming from the fatal shooting of his wife’s lover, Philip Barton Keyes. Although often remembered as an innovative early use of the insanity defense, the jury’s acquittal of Sickles, Marvel convincingly argues, was due to Stanton’s blunt, unapologetic emphasis on male privilege—that a husband’s ownership of his wife’s body implied the right to defend possession of it with lethal force. He finds these episodes to reveal a man far less honest and guided by idealism than he and his supporters contended, despite his widespread reputation for forthright honesty and integrity and for the possession of sincere Christian faith. Stanton was a prewar Democrat, though his political positions tended to be—probably intentionally—vague. Despite his assurances to Chase of his antislavery principles, he did not publicly endorse Republican presidential candidate Lincoln in 1860, and several of...

One of the first artifacts produced by a massive multi-year education transformation effort has been the launching of a one-of-a-kind program focused on transdisciplinary studies that goes well beyond conventional notions of disciplines. One of the main thrusts of the transformation was to intentionally and repeatedly integrate STEM and Humanities learning and outcome assessment of skills and abilities needed for the 21 st century. The challenges of creating and sustaining systemic shifts in culture and operational systems at a large campus have been many, and sometimes controversial. This special session will provide attendees with information and active engagement in a dialog about the motivations, design, and implementation of significant systemic change. Attendees will take away insights not only from what is presented, but also active engagement in transdisciplinary conversations. This session aligns with FIE's focus on innovations in program design and classroom techniques.

In 1986, Kin-dza-dza! (Russian: Кин-дза-дза!)—a Soviet, dystopian comedy directed by Georgi Danevila—was released by Mosfilm. It was soon to be a cult classic. Despite no English-language release u...

"The War Worth Fighting: Abraham Lincoln's Presidency and Civil War America. Edited by Stephen D. Engle. (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2015. Pp. 268. $31.95.)." The Historian, 79(4), pp. 845–846

"Pure Heart: The Faith of a Father and Son in the War for a More Perfect Union." History: Reviews of New Books, 45(6), p. 147

Reviewed by: Lincoln’s Dilemma: Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War Era by Paul D. Escott Michael Thomas Smith Lincoln’s Dilemma: Blair, Sumner, and the Republican Struggle over Racism and Equality in the Civil War Era. By Paul D. Escott. A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era. (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2014. Pp. [xiv], 267. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8139-3619-2.) This new book by Paul D. Escott, one of the most distinguished current historians of the Civil War and Reconstruction, examines the context and evolution of Abraham Lincoln’s racial attitudes and policies through a novel, interesting lens. By focusing on the racial attitudes of Lincoln’s friends Charles Sumner and Montgomery Blair and on those of his eventual assassin John Wilkes Booth, the author is able to convey the range and complexity of the racist attitudes of white northerners during the Civil War era, showing how Lincoln had to struggle to overcome those attitudes. Sumner, one of the Civil War–era Republican Party’s most progressive voices on racial and other issues, pushed Lincoln to embrace a vigorous policy of emancipation and civil rights for African Americans. By the end of the war, through Lincoln’s strenuous efforts in support of the Thirteenth Amendment, Lincoln ended up more or less where Sumner and other Radical Republicans wanted him to be on these issues, but the president’s pace in getting there had often frustrated and infuriated them. The author sensibly argues that Lincoln, and the northern public that he represented and whose support for the war effort he depended on, had to take gradual steps to get there as a matter of practical and political necessity. Blair, a scion of a very politically influential family and a member of Lincoln’s cabinet for nearly all of his first presidential term, represented a much more conservative faction of the Republican Party than did Sumner. Although Blair was an outspoken opponent of slavery, he openly advocated antiblack views and called for continuing separation of the races, ideally through some form of colonization that would remove free blacks from the country. As Escott correctly argues, for much of the war Lincoln’s attitudes and policies on these issues were much closer—if not identical—to those of Blair. The transformative nature of the war itself pushed Lincoln (and other white northerners) partially down the road toward Sumner’s progressive views, but the racist attitudes of the time were so powerful that this process was halting and difficult. The frequent, horrifying violence motivated by racism in this era, which Escott also draws attention to and which ultimately claimed Lincoln’s life [End Page 183] and defeated the Republican Party’s efforts to protect African American civil rights in the Reconstruction era, was a vivid indication of this deep-seated current in nineteenth-century (and beyond) American society and politics. Escott compellingly argues that Lincoln himself may have underestimated the power of American racism in his somewhat optimistic plans for a lenient postwar Reconstruction policy, which Escott thinks was doomed to fail given the determined bitterness of racist resistance to change in the postwar South and the limited commitment, or even outright hostility, of many white northerners to racial equality. Escott’s well-reasoned book is a worthy addition to the sizable literature on Lincoln and race. Drawing on mostly synthetic research, he provides a valuable context for and somewhat original take on our greatest president’s evolving racial views and policies. It is yet another fine book by a superb historian. Michael Thomas Smith McNeese State University Copyright © 2016 The Southern Historical Association

Stephen E. Towne’s new book, Surveillance and Spies in the Civil War: Exposing Confederate Conspiracies in America’s Heartland, argues that Union military authorities in several midwestern states during the Civil War devoted extensive time and resources to infiltrating and suppressing antiwar groups that were working actively to undermine the northern war effort. Towne, an archivist and historian, has done extensive research in the National Archives, as well as in local archives, in order to shine a welcome light on a previously little-known, still imperfectly understood set of events. The book is dense with detail and evidence but generally accessibly written. The endnotes are a veritable treasure trove of citations and thoughtful reflection on the often fascinating and previously obscure sources. Towne provides considerable evidence that Union military commanders in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, and neighboring states, with the assistance of Republican state officials, but minimal coordination or oversight from the overburdened federal authorities in Washington, conducted extensive surveillance operations on American citizens suspected of disloyalty. Missouri, where actual Confederate regular and guerrilla forces periodically marauded, had particularly dire security problems, as Towne also details. Military investigations in these states allegedly discovered extensive networks of opponents of the war, often connected to the Democratic Party, who endeavored to help citizens avoid the draft, encourage and abet desertion, disrupt elections, and even potentially free Confederate prisoners of war en masse. Government-paid detectives, like the notorious Lafayette C. Baker, played significant, though little publicized, roles in these intelligence-gathering activities.

The U.S. Department of Education (DoE) asserts that one way to improve student achievement is to consider competency-based learning. The DoE describes competency-based learning as "a structure that creates flexibility, allows students to progress as they demonstrate mastery of academic content, regardless of time, place, or pace of learning." Competency-based learning focuses on outcomes and skill-sets. Students are encouraged to learn in a way that allows them to employ reproducible skills sets to generate tangible outcomes.Our group is early in an initiative to provide alternative learning environments in STEM higher education. The group consists of faculty from several academic units including liberal arts, libraries, and technology. One of the learning experiences currently being tested involves the tight coupling of all forms of communication and information literacy with technological skills and concepts. We develop an integrated learning experience that cultivates learner's capacities of interpersonal communication and social and cultural awareness in a seminar environment.We will describe our process of generating competencies from AAC&U inspired rubrics and how these were mapped to learning outcomes and learning activities in the seminar environment. The institutional (and in some cases legal) constraints associated with the spirit of competency-based learning will be discussed.

Finally a SharePoint security book for the Site Owner! There are many books for administrators, but few for the Site Owner. This one is for you, the SharePoint Site Collection Administrator, Site Owner and the SharePoint power user. It's also for the developer and the server administrator who needs to understand SharePoint security. When talking about software security there are two distinct topics: authentication and authorization. Server administrators take care of authentication (the who are you) while SharePoint Site Owners take care of authorization (the what are you allowed to do). This book is about authorization. Table of Contents SharePoint Security Fundamentals Security by Obscurity Working with Users and Groups Managing Access Requests Working with Permissions and Permission Levels The 33 Permissions in Detail! Working with Sites, Lists, Libraries, Folders, List Items and Documents Site Collection Security Auditing Security Documenting Your Security SharePoint Designer Security for Developers Security for PowerShell Administrators Security All the other things to consider Security Related Error Messages

Journal Article Paul Taylor. “Old Slow Town”: Detroit during the Civil War. Get access Paul Taylor. “Old Slow Town”: Detroit during the Civil War. (Great Lakes Books.) Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 2013. Pp. x, 248. $34.95. Michael T. Smith Michael T. Smith McNeese State University mtsmith@mcneese.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 119, Issue 4, October 2014, Pages 1272–1273, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/119.4.1272 Published: 03 October 2014