Better With Age

BETWEEN 1884 AND 1887, Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel of Century Magazine published the “Century War Series,” articles by former Union and Confederate officers and some common soldiers about battles and campaigns of the war. It proved so popular that Century nearly doubled its circulation, and Johnson and Buel collected the articles into the superbly illustrated four-volume set Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, which was published between 1887 and 1888. To this day, Battles and Leaders remains one of the most widely read primary sources of the war.

The series provided an opportunity for many officers to shape public opinion, defend reputations, rekindle old offered Hill a chance to hit back at his critics and shape the memory of the battle and his role in it to a national audience.