Previous Seaborg Award Winners

 

2006 Peter Seaborg Prize Winner, Finalists, and Honorable Mentions

 Dr. Edward J. Blum, assistant professor of history at Kean University in New Jersey, received the award for his book entitled Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism 1865-1898. In Reforging the White Republic, Blum focuses on the vital role that religion played in reunifying northern and southern whites into a racially segregated society. He tells the fascinating story of how northern Protestantism, once the catalyst for racial egalitarianism, promoted and sanctified notions of a mythic "white republic."


Other finalists for the award were: Confederate Battle Flag: America’s Most Embattled Emblem by John M. Coski, published by Harvard University Press; Harvard’s Civil War: A History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry by Richard F. Miller, published by the University Press of New England; McClellan’s War: The Failure of Moderation in the Struggle for the Union by Ethan S. Rafuse, published by Indiana University Press; and Nothing But Victory: The Army of the Tennessee 1861-1865 by Steven E. Woodworth, published by Alfred A. Knopf Co.

Titles that received honorable mention are: Black Jack Logan: An Extraordinary Life in Peace and War by Gary Ecelbarger, published by Lyons Press; Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life by Steven Deyle, published by Oxford University Press; John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S. Reynolds, published by Alfred A. Knopf Co.; Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral: The Life of Samuel Francis Du Pont by Kevin J. Weddle, published by the University of Virginia Press; The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders’ Worldview by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, published by Cambridge University Press; and The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac by Jeffry D. Wert, published by Simon & Schuster.

Established in 1998, the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship celebrates the life and interests of Peter Seaborg, son of Nobel Prize winner Glenn Seaborg. The award is designed to encourage the publication of Civil War history of unique perspective and superior quality. The George Tyler Moore Center is part of the History Department at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and administers the prize for the Seaborg Family.

 

2005 and earlier Seaborg Prize Winners

The winner of the 2005 Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship was After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans, published by the University Press of Kansas and written by Donald R. Shaffer, who teaches history at the University of Northern Colorado. In After the Glory, Shaffer chronicles the postwar transition of black veterans from the Union army, as well as their subsequent life patterns, political involvement, family and marital life, experiences with social welfare, comradeship with other veterans, and memories of the war itself.

The winner of the 2004 Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship was Justice of Shattered Dreams: Samuel Freeman Miller and the Supreme Court during the Civil War Era, published by Louisiana State University Press and written by Dr. Michael A. Ross, formerly a corporate lawyer and now associate professor of history at Loyola University in New Orleans. It documents the career of one of one of the most important Supreme Court justices whose opinions helped to define our nation’s legal policies following the Civil War during the turbulent period of Reconstruction. Miller is considered by many as one of the hundred individuals in the history of the world who have most influenced the law.

A biography of the notorious and enigmatic American figure, Jesse James, was chosen as the winner of the 2003 Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, documents the outlaw’s experiences in pre-war Missouri, his Civil War exploits as an irregular cavalry trooper, and his infamous post-war career as a bank-robbing criminal. The work was written by T.J. Stiles of New York City and published by Alfred A. Knopf Publishing Company. A free-lance historian, Stiles is a native of Benton County, Minnesota, and has studied history at Carleton College and Columbia University. Kenneth W. Noe won the 2002 Seaborg Award for his book Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle, the account of a significant yet historically neglected Civil War battle.His accomplishment is particularly noteworthy as the 2002 prize was selected from nominations covering three publishing years (1999-2001). Previous Seaborg awards went to Noel C. Fisher for his work, War at Every Door, a study of partisan politics and guerrilla violence in East Tennessee in the years 1860-69, and to Professor Joseph Harsh of George Mason University for his study of Robert E. Lee’s war strategy in Confederate Tide Rising.