EDWARD VALENTIN JR. has won the John T. Hubbell Prize for the best article published in Civil War History during 2021 for his March 2021 article, “Local Knowledge: Black Texans, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and Military Occupation in Reconstruction Texas.”

The prize selection committee, comprised of a subgroup of members of the journal’s editorial advisory board, praised the article as “well written, deftly argued, and creatively conceived.” Although focused on a local story, “Local Knowledge” sheds new light on the larger national process of Reconstruction. Valentin skillfully incorporates the source material, using it not only to establish a narrative but also to analyze and show the interplay between freedpeople and federal authorities. As a result, Valentin is able to map paths and sources of intelligence and support for the Freedmen’s Bureau, while at the same time suggesting the woefully insufficient resources the government applied to the welfare of freedpeople in Texas. As they had in the end of slavery itself, formerly enslaved people played a central role in determining their own fate in partnership with the US government.

PRIZE SELECTION COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Lisa Tendrich Frank
John Hennessy
Paul Quigley

EDWARD VALENTIN JR. is a curator at the National Museum of the United States Navy in Washington, DC. He received his bachelor of science in history from the United States Military Academy in 2010 and his doctorate in history from Rice University in May 2020. His work focuses on nineteenth-century US history and the experiences of Black soldiers in the US-Mexico borderlands during the post–Civil War era. He is currently working on a book manuscript, Black Men in Army Blue: Race, Citizenship, and Military Occupation, 1866–1900, under contract with the University of Virginia Press.

Now in its 68th year of publication, Civil War History is published quarterly by The Kent State University Press. Edited by Jim Downs (Gettysburg College) and Associate Editor Crystal Feimster (Yale University), it is a long-standing leader in the study of the American Civil War.

Awarded annually by The Kent State University Press, the John T. Hubbell Prize recognizes the extraordinary contribution to the field of its namesake, who served as editor of Civil War History for thirty-five years. The winner is determined by the journal’s prize selection committee, and the prize earns the recipient a $1,000 award from The Kent State University Press.