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
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, availible to students, researchers, and the public. All documents, including the inagural 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 initative at a reception in the archives.
2025 Conference on the Civil War: New Directions in the Legal History of the Civil War Era
The Center for Civil War Research held the 2025 Conference on the Civil War (a Porter Fortune Symposium) October 16-18 on the University of Mississippi campus. The conference marked the 20th anniversary of the Conference on the Civil War and the 50th anniversary of the Porter Fortune Symposium. The program featured papers presented by scholars from around the nation as well as a special roundtable on the legal history of the Civil War era featuring Cynthia Nicoletti (University of Virginia), Gautham Rao (American University), and Anne Twitty (Stanford University). Ariela Gross (UCLA) delivered a keynote address entitled “Erasing Slavery, Rewriting Freedom: How Stories of Slavery and Emancipation Shape Battles Over the Constitution.”
Cecily Zander's The Army Under Fire Wins 2025 Wiley-Silver Prize
The prize committee praised Zander's The Army Under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era as "well-written and persuasively argued" and a "sobering yet necessary reflection on the constraints of what could be achieved during the Civil War period" and "enhances our understanding of the causes of the Civil War, the ways in which Union armies fought, and why Reconstruction was, paradoxically, a limited revolution." The Wiley-Silver Prize is awarded annually to the best first book in Civil War history. Zander accepted her award and spoke on her book at the 2025 Conference on the Civil War.
Andrew Boldt Awarded 2025-26 McMinn Fellowship
Andrew Boldt recieved the McMinn Fellowship for his dissertation on Confederate occupation in southern communities during the Civil War. He will use the fellowship to suport a sememester of research in spring 2026.
