History of the Richard Barksdale Harwell Award

By Gould Hagler · Originally published November 2018 · p. 22

By Gould Hagler Every year for three decades the Atlanta Civil War Round Table has presented the Richard Barksdale Harwell Award for the best book on a Civil War subject published in the preceding year. The award was conceived in the late 80s by Tom Watson Brown, who had been president of the Round Table in 1969–1970. According to CWN’s Book Review Editor Stephen Davis, Brown contacted him and Jim Bogle (another former president), both of whom readily agreed that such an award would further the organization’s mission to promote serious discussion and study of the American Civil War. Davis said Brown suggested the award be named in honor of Harwell, the first president of the Round Table and noted bibliographer, librarian, and historian. Harwell is also the author of IN TALL COTTON the 200 Most Important Confederate Books for the Reader, Researcher and Collector, Jenkins Publishing Company (1978). When Harwell accepted the honor, Davis said, he asked that his middle name be included whenever his name was used in connection with the award. “He was very proud of his Mississippi lineage,” said Davis, “and it has always been the Richard

Barksdale Harwell Award.” The Round Table granted the first award in 1989, when William Matter won the prize for If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania. The most recent winner is Brian Steel Wills, author of Inglorious Passages: Noncombat Deaths in the American Civil War. Wills is one of three authors to receive the award twice. “Back in the old days,” as Davis put it, he, Brown, and Bogle would meet over lunch every November, talk about the works published that year, and pick a winner. All three, of course, were prodigious readers and very knowledgeable about the literature. Since then the process has become more formal. Now serving on the Award Committee are five Round Table members, including Gary Barnes, who has chaired the committee since 2008. Barnes said the committee reads between 12 and 16 books each year, books culled from a much longer list of possibilities nominated by Round Table members and others, as well as books submitted by publishers and authors. Barnes also solicits suggestions from historians. “I ask them what they are reading,” said Barnes, “and I read a ton of book reviews.” This process produces a manageable number of books that can be read carefully and discussed by his hard-working committee. “They all have three or four books on their night tables,” said Barnes. The Richard Barksdale Harwell Award consists of monetary prize of $4,000 and an engraved plaque. The committee is now accepting nominations for the 2019 award, said Barnes. To be considered, all nominations and copies of books from publishers or authors must be received by the Round Table by December 31. The selection will be made by March 15. Nominations should be sent to Richard Barksdale Harwell Award Committee, Attn: Gary Barnes, 7535 Belton Bridge Road, Lula, GA, 30554-2346. Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and is the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. He speaks frequently on this topic and others related to different aspects of the Civil War and has been a regular contributor to CWN since 2016. He can be reached at [email protected].

Recipients of the Richard Barksdale Harwell Award 1989 William D. Matter, If It Takes All Summer. The University of North Carolina Press. 1990 Christopher Losson, Tennessee’s Forgotten Warrior. The University of Tennessee Press. 1991 Robert K. Krick, Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain. The University of North Carolina Press. 1992 Gary Gallagher, Struggle for the Shenandoah. The Kent State University Press. 1993 Albert Castel, Decision in the West. The University Press of Kansas. 1994 Richard Bumgartner & Larry Strayer, Echoes of Battle. Blue Acorn Press. 1995 William R. Scaife, The Campaign for Atlanta. McNaughton & Gunn. 1996 Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee. W.W. Norton & Company. 1997 William Marvel, Andersonville: The Last Depot. The University of North Carolina Press. 1998 James I. Robertson Jr., Stonewall Jackson. McMillan Publishing U.S.A. 1999 J. Tracy Power, Lee’s Miserables. The University of North Carolina Press. 2000 Thomas G. Dyer, Secret Yankees. The John Hopkins University Press. 2001 Anne Bailey, Chessboard of War. University of Nebraska Press. 2002 William C. Davis, The Union That Shaped the Confederacy. University Press of Kansas. 2003 Gordon G. Rhea, Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee. Louisiana State University Press 2004 Francis A. O’Reilly, The Fredericksburg Campaign. Louisiana State University Press 2005 Larry Daniels, Days of Glory: Army of the Cumberland. Louisiana State University Press. 2006 Tom Carhart, Lost Triumph: Lee’s Real Plan at Gettysburg and Why It Failed. The Berkley Publishing Group. 2007 Russell S. Bonds, Stealing the General. Westholme Yardley. 2008 Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters. The Penguin Group. 2009 James M. McPherson, Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief. The Penguin Group. 2010 Earl J. Hess, In the Trenches at Petersburg: Field Fortifications and Confederate Defeat. The University of North Carolina Press. 2011 David A. Powell, Failure in the Saddle: Nathan B. Forrest, Joe Wheeler and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign. Savas Beatie LLC. 2012 Jeffry Wert, A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee’s Triumph 1862–1863. Simon & Schuster. 2013 Brian Steel Wills, George Henry Thomas: As True As Steel. University Press of Kansas. 2014 Allen C. Guelzo, Gettysburg: The Last Invasion. Alfred A. Knopf. 2015 Timothy B. Smith, Shiloh: Conquer or Perish. University Press of Kansas. 2016 David A. Powell, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave. Savas Beatie LLC. 2017 Earl Hess, Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man in the Confederacy. The University of North Carolina Press. 2018 Brian Steel Wills, Inglorious Passages: Noncombat Deaths in the American Civil War. University Press of Kansas.