Dissident Mama, episode 14 – Philip Leigh

Episode 14 features Philip Leigh, author of numerous books, including “Southern Reconstruction,” “Lee’s Lost Dispatch and Other Civil War Controversies,” “Trading with the Enemy: The Covert Economy During the American Civil War,” “The Confederacy at Flood Tide: The Political and Military Ascension, June to December 1862,” “The Devil's Town: Hot Springs During the Gangster Era,” and his newest work “U.S. Grant's Failed Presidency.” You can read his blog posts at his website Civil War Chat, as well as his essays published at the Abbeville Institute.

Leigh contributed 24 articles to The New York Times Disunion blog, which commemorated the Civil War Sesquicentennial. The prolific writer also lectures at various War Between the States forums and roundtables, and will be speaking at Abbeville’s upcoming fall conference entitled “Who Owns America?” A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Leigh holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Florida Institute of Technology and an MBA from Northwestern University.

The independent historian and I talk about no sympathy for national battlefield guides, Washington and Lee University’s push to purge Lee and the gentleman ethic, name changes of military bases (and birds!), the spinelessness of the GOP, how compelling Southern fiction could be an untapped strategy of unReconstructed resistance, and that A.P. Hill might just be a good hill to die on (figuratively, of course). Here’s to happy listening and staking our Southern claim.