Steven E. Woodworth (born January 28, 1961) is an American historian specializing in studies of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. He has written numerous books concerning the Civil War, and as a professor has taught classes on the Civil War, the

Reconstruction Era The Reconstruction era was a period in History of the United States, US history that followed the American Civil War (1861-65) and was dominated by the legal, social, and political challenges of the Abolitionism in the United States, abol ...

, and military history.

Career

Steven E. Woodworth was born in Ohio on January 28, 1961 and spent most his early life in Illinois. He graduated from

Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of T ...

in 1982 with a B.A. in history. He received his Ph.D. in 1987 at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

. Woodworth served as a professor at Oklahoma Wesleyan University in

Bartlesville, Oklahoma Bartlesville is a city mostly in Washington County and Osage County, Oklahoma. The population was 37,290 at the 2020 census. Bartlesville is north of Tulsa and south of the Kansas border. It is the county seat of Washington County. The Cane ...

, and at Toccoa Falls College in Toccoa Falls, Georgia, where he taught a wide variety of history courses, including on life in ancient

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. He began working as a professor at

Texas Christian University Texas Christian University (TCU) is a private university, private research university in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. It was established in 1873 by brothers Addison Clark, Addison and Randolph Clark as the AddRan Male & Female College. It i ...

in 1997. He has taught courses there on the

Old South Geographically, the U.S. states known as the Old South are those in the Southern United States that were among the original Thirteen Colonies. The region term is differentiated from the Deep South and Upper South. From a cultural and social s ...

, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Woodworth is a firm believer in the strategic importance of the sometimes-overlooked Western Theater of the American Civil War. In ''Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West,'' he wrote: Writing in the ''Journal of American History'', Woodworth derided the 2003 Civil War film '' Gods and Generals'', based on Jeff Shaara's 1998

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

of the same name, as a modern-day telling of

Lost Cause The Lost Cause of the Confederacy, known simply as the Lost Cause, is an American pseudohistorical and historical negationist myth that argues the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not cente ...

mythology. Woodworth called the movie "the most pro-Confederate film since ''Birth of a Nation'', a veritable celluloid celebration of slavery and treason." He summed up his reasons for disliking the movie by saying: Woodworth criticized the portrayal of slaves as being "generally happy" with their condition. He also criticizes the relative lack of attention given to the motivations of Union soldiers fighting in the war. He excoriates the film for allegedly implying, in agreement with Lost Cause mythology, that the South was more "sincerely Christian." Woodworth concludes that the film, through "judicial omission," presents "a distorted view of the Civil War."

Selected works

The following are books written by Woodworth:Steven E. Woodworth
''Organization of American Historians.'' Web. Retrieved March 27, 2016. * * ''Davis and Lee at War'' (1995) * ''Six Armies in Tennessee: The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns'' (1998) * ''While God Is Marching On: The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers'' (2001) * ''Beneath a Northern Sky: A Short History of the Gettysburg Campaign'' (2003) * ''Nothing but Victory: The Army of the Tennessee, 1861-1865'' (2005) * ''Manifest Destinies: Westward Expansion and the Civil War'' (2010) * ''This Great Struggle: America's Civil War'' (2011)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woodworth, Steven E. 1961 births American male non-fiction writers American military writers Historians of the American Civil War Living people Rice University alumni Oklahoma Wesleyan University faculty