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Dr. Lesley Gordon

Professor

Charles Boal Ewing Chair in Military History

Lesley.gordon@westpoint.edu

Biography

Professor Lesley J. Gordon earned her BA in History from The College of William and Mary, and her MA and PhD in American History from the University of Georgia. She taught at Murray State University and the University of Akron before becoming the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at the University of Alabama in 2016. Professor Gordon has authored three monographs, co-edited four volumes of essays, and co-written a textbook about the American Civil War. She has also published numerous book chapters, journal articles, book reviews and encyclopedia entries, and presented her work at scholarly conferences across the country and abroad. Professor Gordon has been a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians since 2009 and has had her lectures and presentations featured on C-span. She has served as editor of the academic journal Civil War History (2010-2015), President of the Society for Civil War History (2022-2024) and is currently Chair of the Editorial Board for the University of Alabama Press

Ongoing Research Projects

“The American Civil War,” in the Oxford Handbook on the History of War, edited By Rob Johnson and Beatrice Heuser. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

"‘Other than Passive Courage’: Black Troops at the Battle of Olustee”—book chapter for edited volume.

“Wartime Mobile”—book manuscript in progress

Publications & Presentations

Monographs:

Dread Danger: Cowardice and Combat in the American Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2024.

A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014. Paperback edition, 2018.

General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. History Book Club Selection. Paperback edition, 2001.

Co-authored Textbook:

This Terrible War: The Civil War and its Aftermath. Co-author with Daniel E. Sutherland and Michael Fellman. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. 2003; 2nd edition, 2008. 3rd edition, New York: Pearson, 2015.

Edited Volumes:

Race and Gender at War: Writing American Military History. Co-editor with Andrew Huebner. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2024.

American Discord: The Republic and its People in the Civil War Era. Co-Editor with Megan Bever, and Laura Mammina. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2020.

Inside the Confederate Nation: Essays in Honor of Emory M. Thomas. Co-editor with John C. Inscoe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005. Paperback edition, 2007.

Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives. Co-editor with Carol K. Bleser. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Paperback edition, 2007.

Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

“‘Made Victims Instead of Heroes’: Communal Identity in a Civil War Unit,” in Hundreds of Little Wars: Community, Conflict, and the Real Civil War, edited by Matthew M. Stith and David Schieffler. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, forthcoming, 2025.

"Civil War Regiments,” in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, edited by Jon Butler. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2021.

“‘Novices in Warfare’: Elmer E. Ellsworth and Militia Reform on the Eve of Civil War.” Journal of Civil War Era Vol. Vol. 11, No. 2 (June 2021): 194-223.

“From Reconciliation to Reckoning: Historiography of the South and the Civil War,” coauthor with Stephen Berry, in Reinterpreting Southern Histories, edited by Craig Thompson Friend and Lorri Glover. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 2020, 197-217.

“Armies and Discipline,” in The Cambridge History of the American Civil War, 3 Vols., edited by Aaron Sheehan-Dean. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019, Vol. II: 159-73.

“‘Does it Matter After All Who Wins?’: The Movie Gettysburg and Popular Perceptions of the Civil War,” in Writing History with Lightning: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth Century America, edited by John Inscoe and Matthew C. Hulbert. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2019, 172-80.

“‘Deeds of Brave Suffering and Lofty Heroism’: Martialised Rhetoric and Kentucky Soldiers,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society. Vol. 117, No. 2 (Spring 2019): 179-95.

Selected Presentations:

“Innovation in Warfighting,” Panel Chair and Commentator, The Society of Civil War Historians Biennial Meeting, Raleigh, NC, June 22, 2024.

“General James Longstreet and the Limits and Possibilities of Reconstruction in New Orleans,” Panel Commentator, Louisiana Historical Association, March 22, 2024.

“Wartime Mobile,” Panelist, British American Nineteenth Century Historians Annual Conference, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, September 24, 2023.

“Union Generals and the Problem of Reconstruction: A Roundtable,” Chair and Participant, British American Nineteenth Century Historians Annual Conference, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK, October 8, 2022.

“In Defense of the Regimental History,” in “A Discussion of Civil War Unit Histories,” Roundtable Participant, Society of Civil War Historians Bi-Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, June 3, 2022.