"Front Line" Post #2 for "The Civil War Monitor"

As part of their online presence, the new magazine The Civil War Monitor has a community blog they've named "The Front Line" (here). Terry Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of the Monitor, kindly invited me to join that community so I'll be posting there on subjects near and dear to me and (hopefully!) interesting to you!

My second "Front Line" post (here) is up on the Monitor website today:

"A Regiment of Inventors"
















The post briefly describes the interesting role of Scientific American magazine during the Civil War, with particular attention to the weekly "Notes and Queries" column, which often featured some rather futuristic ideas. In this post you will learn about Civil War ideas for night-vision devices, "death rays," and...cell phones! Our forefathers (and -mothers) had more technological savvy than you might think!

The Monitor's "Blog and Social Media Editor," Laura June Davis, is doing an amazing job at keeping the site updated and dynamic...You will want to visit the Monitor website (here) every day as there is always new content!

You can also keep up with them on Facebook (here) or Twitter (here).

Enjoy!

(You can see my first "Front Line" blog post for the Monitor here)

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Anyone who has read my blog knows that the role of Scientific American magazine in the Civil War is a favorite topic of mine. Indeed, it served as the subject of full chapters in two of my books. Here are some links to my previous posts on Scientific American and the Civil War:

Excerpt from Years of Change and Suffering: Modern Perspectives on Civil War Medicine (Edinborough Press, 2009) - "Scientific American and Civil War Medicine" (here)

Bibliographical Essay from Lincoln's Labels: America's Best Known Brands and the Civil War (Edinborough Press, 2008) - "Scientific American magazine" (here)