Adam H. Domby

Education

PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

MA, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

BA, Yale University 

About Me

Adam Domby is a historian of the Civil War and Reconstruction. His first book, The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory (University of Virginia Press, 2020), examines the role of lies and exaggeration, in the creation of Lost Cause narratives of the war, as well as their connections to white supremacy. Looking at pension fraud, Confederate monument dedications, and other myths reveals that much of our understanding of the Civil War remains influenced by falsehoods and racism.

Domby has written on a variety of topics including prisoners of war, guerrilla warfare, and genealogy. His current book project At War with Itself, focuses on southerners fighting their neighbors during the American Civil War and examines the legacy of those local fights that civil wars inevitably create. His research centers on the role these conflicts played in three divided southern communities during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Close examination of the social dynamics of these southern communities reveals new insights into why the Confederacy lost, why Reconstruction ended the way it did, and the distinctiveness of southern society, culture, and politics.

He is also currently researching, with Dr. Shari Rabin, a biography of the nineteenth-century rabbi conman. Through the misadventures of one man, the project will examine various aspects of the second half of the nineteenth century including political culture and corruption, Unionism, and American Judaism.

Previous to his arrival at Auburn, Domby was an assistant professor of history at the College of Charleston.

Dr. Domby is currently accepting both MA and PhD students as his advisees. Current and past graduate students have researched a variety of topics including African American women in Reconstruction politics, tourism during Jim Crow, Jews during the Civil War era, education during Reconstruction, and Civil War memory among other topics. Dr. Domby works closely with his advisees to perfect their skills as a researcher, writer, and practitioner of history.

Graduate Students:

Matthew Poirier (PhD student focused on Civil War memory)

Miller Eberlein (MA student focused on southern Jewish history)

Research Interests

Civil War and Reconstruction, historical memory

Publications

The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory (UVA Press, 2020).

Adam H. Domby and Simon Lewis (eds.): Freedoms Gained And Lost: Reconstruction and Its Meanings 150 Years Later (Fordham University Press, December 2021). 

Adam H. Domby and Shari Rabin, “Simon Gerstmann’s War: Jews and Loyalty in the Post-Civil War Claims Courts” Journal of Southern History, November 2021, 565-602.

“Captives of Memory: The Contested Legacy of Race and Atrocity at Andersonville National Historic Site” Civil War History, Vol. 63, No. 3, September 2017, pp. 253-294. 

Adam H. Domby and Christopher Barr, “Prisoners of the Public: The National Park Service Interprets the POW Experience” in Lorien Foote and Daniel Krebs (eds.) Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts, (University Press of Kansas, 2021, pp. 277-312). 

“American Warlord? Reconsidering ‘Guerrilla’ Leader John Gatewood” in Barton Myers and Brian McKnight (ed.), The Guerrilla Hunters: Exploring the Civil War’s Irregular Conflicts, (LSU Press, 2017 pp. 147-170).