Hat tip to my good friend Dr. Laura Munski, who shared this interesting site, created by ESRI, who produces the software ArcGIS, which is used for GIS, cartography, and many other uses. They also have a series of sites, called Story Maps, which all look interesting (yes, I am into geography as well as history).

The Story Map on the Civil War is quite interesting, as it highlights battles, in chronological order, offers the user the chance to narrow the range, and, it animates the battle sites on the base map. One great feature is the linking to the battle sites through the Civil War Trust, who links to this site. Civil War Trust is a pretty cool site for learning about the war, and battlefield preservation. It also has a page for smartphone apps (if you are able to enjoy that technology).

If you have…

Zachary Shore. What Hitler Knew: The Battle for Information in Nazi Foreign Policy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-19-515459-7. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xi, 159.

This is an interesting study of information flow, or the lack of it, in the making of Nazi foreign policy.  Dr Zachary Shore, Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies, University of California at Berkeley, argues the importance of information control during the Third Reich and its impact on decision-making in German foreign policy.  The study is the published version of Shore’s doctoral thesis in modern history titled “Dictatorship, Information, and the Limits of Power: Hitler and Foreign Policy Decision Making, 1933-1939” (University of Oxford, 1999).  Shore is also known for his Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam, and the Future of Europe (2006) and 

It is nice to see these veterans being honored so long after giving their lives in defense of the Union. What’s even more impressive is the use of DNA in attempting to identify the men. This story raises some interesting questions as to how many other veterans are unaccounted for from the war and how DNA can be used to find other veterans deserving of military honors and burial.

Two Navy sailors slated for heroes’ burials at Arlington National Cemetery have waited a century and a half for the honor.

The men were among the crew members who perished aboard the legendary Union battleship the USS Monitor, which fought an epic Civil War battle with Confederate vessel The Merrimack in the first battle between two ironclad ships in the Battle of Hampton Roads, on March 9, 1862.

Nine months later, the Monitor sank in rough seas off of Cape Hatteras…

Originally posted to Civil Warriors.

The program for the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History, which is being held on 14-16 March 2013, in New Orleans, LA, and sponsored by the Center for the Study of War and Society at The University of Southern Mississippi, with the National World War II Museum and Southeastern Louisiana University, has recently been posted.

Not much this year, unfortunately, to interest the Civil War enthusiast. I saw only one session dedicated to the subject, which is definitely odd considering this is the 150th anniversary of not a few events of note in the military history of the Civil War. No doubt this is in large part due to a program on the 150th at Gettysburg College that is running the same weekend. Still, there will once again be a decent contingent of Civil War historians in attendance, including…