Peter S. Carmichael (1966–2024)

Peter S. Carmichael, a leading historian of the Civil War–era United States, passed away on July 21, 2024, the 163rd anniversary of the first Battle of Bull Run. He is survived by his wife, Beth, and their twin daughters, Isabel and Cameron. A host of historians also mourn the premature loss of a guiding light in our field and our lives.

Courtesy Beth Carmichael

Pete was a Hoosier through and through, earning his bachelor’s degree at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Building on a youthful interest in the Civil War cultivated by road trips to battlefields with his family, Pete worked as a seasonal historian and living history educator at several National Park Service (NPS) sites in Virginia. At Fredericksburg, a meeting with Gary Gallagher led Pete to enroll in the graduate program at Pennsylvania State University. Pete’s MA thesis and PhD dissertation, written under Gallagher’s direction, became drafts for Pete’s first two books, Lee’s Young Artillerist: William R. J. Pegram (Univ. of Virginia Press, 1995) and The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion (Univ. of North Carolina [UNC] Press, 2005). He edited the essay collection Audacity Personified: The Generalship of Robert E. Lee (Louisiana State Univ. Press, 2004), and UNC Press published Pete’s masterpiece, The War for the Common Soldier: How Men Thought, Fought, and Survived in Civil War Armies (2018), as part of its Littlefield History of the Civil War Era series.

Pete’s research and writing made significant contributions to military, social, and cultural history by revealing a multitude of connections across these subfields. To understand the experiences of Civil War soldiers and officers, Pete contended, we must attend not only to the complexities of military campaigns but also to the social relationships, cultural scripts, and perceptual lenses that embedded these men in their communities, regions, and nations. At the time of his passing, he was writing a narrative history that made these interpretive claims about ordinary soldiers who fought in the Gettysburg Campaign. Pete’s impact on the field of Civil War studies goes beyond his own scholarship. As co-editor of UNC Press’s Civil War America series, he helped numerous authors hone their arguments and prose as they brought their books to publication.

Pete left an indelible mark on the history departments in which he taught: Western Carolina University; UNC Greensboro; West Virginia University; and, since 2010, Gettysburg College, where he also served as director of the Civil War Institute (CWI). He was a generous colleague and a phenomenal instructor. He continuously sought to break down perceived boundaries between academic and public historians, and he took every chance to apply the insights of scholars in both of these communities. He brought the past to life in the lecture hall and on the battlefield. He had high expectations for his students and took great care in mentoring them. Many of Pete’s students carry on his legacy in jobs at the NPS and at academic institutions.

The first thing people may have noticed about Pete was his idiosyncratic sartorial choices. He wore scarves to complement impeccably tailored suits just as often as he would don casual Indiana Pacers gear, to the delight of CWI summer conference attendees. But even chance acquaintances were struck by his larger-than-life presence. Pete had an ebullient personality, deep intellectual curiosity, and razor-sharp wit. I will miss our laughter together, for one of my favorite roles was playing the straight man in Pete’s jokes. But I’ll also miss being able to talk to him about my work, my family, and my life. He always gave me valuable advice, and I know that many historians can say the same. For lots of us, Pete was the best friend who encouraged us, ribbed us, and set us straight. His absence—in Gettysburg, at conferences, and in the exciting scholarship he was unable to finish—seems oppressive. I hope, eventually, that all he gave to us will be a comfort. He taught us so much about history, being a historian, and living our best lives.