Historians’ Forum: The American Civil War’s Centennial vs. The Sesquicentennial

In 2010, Daniel Sutherland’s A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2009) won the Watson-Brown Prize for the best book in the Civil War era from the Society of Civil War Historians. During his acceptance speech, Sutherland reflected on the pending sesquicentennial, wondering whether it would attract the same amount of attention as the centennial commemoration fifty years previous. In light of the discussion generated by Sutherland’s address at the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association, the editors of Civil War History sought to explore this question further by organizing a forum on the topic. Daniel Sutherland, a member of our board of editors, was kind enough to offer his thoughts on the participants’ responses at the end of our forum.