Kenneth W. Noe

About

Born and raised in Virginia, Ken Noe is a graduate of Emory & Henry College, earned master’s degrees at Virginia Tech and the University of Kentucky, and received his doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1990 as a student of Robert W. Johannsen. He taught history at the University of West Georgia for a decade and then at Auburn University from 2000 until 2021.

He is the author or editor of nine books, most recently the new Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend. His previous book, The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate and the American Civil War, was a Lincoln Prize finalist in 2021 and co-winner of the 2022 Colonel Richard W. Ulbrich Memorial Book Award. Twice a Pulitzer Prize entrant, he received the 2002 Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War history for Perryville, the 1997 Tennessee History Book Award for A Southern Boy in Blue, and several teaching awards. Currently, he is co-editing with Jennifer Murray a collection of essays on the Army of the Potomac.

When not thinking about the Civil War, he follows the 2024-25 World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, Liverpool FC, and every college that ever handed him a diploma.

Contact him for book reviews or speaking engagements at noekenn[at]auburn.edu

Curriculum Vitae

vita2024.webpage Download

News and Upcoming Events

Benjamin P. Thomas Memorial Symposium, Abraham Lincoln Association, Springfield, IL, Feb. 13, 2027

Ann Arbor Civil War Round Table, March 8, 2027

“Lincoln at Antietam,” In Lincoln’s Footsteps, Shepherd University, Apr. 18, 2027

Books

(Click on the book covers for more information)

Reviews of Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend:

“Kenneth W. Noe has never had a problem tackling offbeat topics. Instead of a book on Gettysburg or Shiloh, he did what is still the definitive account of Perryville. Reluctant Rebels: The Confederates Who Joined the Army after 1861 and The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and the American Civil War also covered less discussed topics. At first glance, Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend steps out of this mold….Yet Noe, as always, surprises yet again…. I highly recommend this book.—Emerging Civil War

“Of all the enduring components of the Lincoln canonization, his performance as commander in chief provides some of the most fertile ground for critical reevaluation. Kenneth Noe’s impressive Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend provides both new thrust to that movement as well as an essential historical framework for understanding exactly how and why Lincoln came to be celebrated as one of the finest, if not the finest, presidential war leaders in our nation’s history.—Civil War Books and Authors

“This masterful summary of the literature on Abraham Lincoln as war chieftain is an essential contribution to the canon of Lincoln studies.” — Frank J. Wetta, coauthor of Abraham Lincoln and Women in Film: One Hundred Years of Hollywood Mythmaking

“With a complex and fascinating analysis, Noe describes the processes by which historians and the public seek to canonize Lincoln. This dazzling examination of the interplay of legends and myth will surely generate much deliberation.” — Orville Vernon Burton, coeditor of Lincoln’s Unfinished Work: The New Birth of Freedom from Generation to Generation