Hubbell Prize Awarded

Diane Miller Sommerville has won the John T. Hubbell Prize for the best article published in Civil War History during 2013. Her study, “‘A Burden Too Heavy to Bear’: War Trauma, Suicide, and Confederate Soldiers,” Civil War History (December 2013), was selected by the journal’s editorial advisory board. The prize earns the recipient a $1,000 award from The Kent State University Press.

Somerville’s article explores the impact of war trauma on Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, especially its role in contributing to a rash of suicidal episodes among southern enlisted men and officers. Antebellum southern white men and boys had been steeped in a gendered culture of honor that demanded bravery and martial participation during war. Some soldiers, though, became gripped with anxiety and fear when faced with their imminent involvement in battle and so turned to killing themselves rather than risk being labeled cowards. The bevy of Confederate wartime suicides emerged out of a larger swath of psychological and emotional suffering among soldiers and civilians alike that contributed to a reconsideration of the meaning of cowardice and an increased tolerance for victims of suicide, which had long been regarded as taboo.

Diane Miller Sommerville is associate professor of history at Binghamton University, SUNY. She is currently finishing a book manuscript called “Aberration of Mind: Suicide, Civil War, and the American South,” made possible in large part by a fellowship provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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.