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 Howling Storm: Weather, Climate and the American Civil War, 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 also 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. His newest book, Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend, is forthcoming from LSU Press in February 2026. It examines the memory of Lincoln’s tenure as commander-in-chief.

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

“Southwest Virginia and the Virginian and Tennessee Railroad.” College for Older Adults, Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, Mar. 2, 2026.

“The Future of Lincoln” Symposium, Filson Historical Society, July 21, 2026

Books

(Click on the book covers for more information)

New, available in February 2026

Advance praise for Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend:

“Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend offers a fascinating narrative of how generations of writers and historians evaluated the sixteenth president’s reputation as commander in chief during the Civil War. Noe suggests that the admiring and uncritical depiction of Lincoln’s grasp of the military arts, which still largely prevails today, might be worthy of a more critical appraisal.” — Joan Waugh, author of U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth

“In Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend, Kenneth W. Noe offers a sophisticated and probing analysis of Abraham Lincoln as a wartime commander in chief. He then presents a richly detailed account of how Lincoln’s contemporaries and later historians helped create the idea that Lincoln, the untutored amateur, turned into a military genius far superior to even his best generals. This forcefully argued work is a major contribution to our understanding of the evolution of Civil War military history.” — George C. Rable, author of Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War

“Kenneth W. Noe calls for spirited debate regarding Lincoln’s actions as commander in chief, and in Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend, he delivers exactly that! Exploring history, historiography, memory, myth, and legend, Noe’s account is sure to stimulate lively discussion among scholars and enthusiasts about Lincoln’s wartime presidency.” — Jonathan W. White, Lincoln Prize–winning author of A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House

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

“In Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend, Civil War historian Ken Noe boldly disputes the historiography that defines Lincoln as a great military genius above all his generals, especially McClellan. 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