History Department

Christian Samito

visiting assistant professor

Christian Samito

Telephone: (617) 552-6950

Office Location: 21 Campanella Way, 412-L

Email: christian.samito.1@bc.edu

Education


College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts
B.A. in History, magna cum laude

Harvard Law School Cambridge, Massachusetts
J.D.

Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Ph.D.

  • Dissertation: Proof Of Loyalty: Irish Americans, African Americans, And The Redefinition Of Citizenship During The Civil War Era
  • Fields: American History 1776-1877, American Legal History, American Social History, Modern European History


Major Publications

Series Editor

Legal History of the Civil War Era: From the Mexican War to Jim Crow (new series by Southern Illinois University Press)

Books

Becoming American under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, And The Redefinition Of Citizenship During The Civil War Era (Cornell University Press, 2009).

Law, Society, and Change During the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Legal History Documentary Reader (Southern Illinois University Press, 2009).   

Fear Was Not In Him: The Civil War Letters of Major General Francis C. Barlow, U.S.A. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2004).

Commanding Boston's Irish Ninth: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Patrick R. Guiney Ninth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (New York: Fordham University Press, 1998).

Editor, Daniel G. Macnamara's History of the Ninth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000).

Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters

"The Good Knight of Boston: Colonel Patrick R. Guiney and the Civil War" in Irish Soldiers, American Wars: Irishmen in the Mexican and American Civil Wars, Arthur Mitchell, ed. (forthcoming, Irish Academic Press, 2011).

"The Intersection between Military Justice and Equal Rights: Mutinies, Courts-Martial, and Black Civil War Soldiers," in Civil War History (June 2007): 170-202.

"'Patriot by Nature, Christian by Faith': Major General William Dorsey Pender, C. S. A.," in The North Carolina Historical Review (April 1999): 163-201.


Teaching Experience

Boston University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts

  • Lecturer in Law (Spring 2009 - Fall 2009)
    JD 845: Civil War and Reconstruction

Boston College, History Department, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

  • Visiting Assistant Professor (2009-2010)
    HS 032: Europe and the Modern World II
    HS 181: United States History Survey Part I
    HS 514: The American Civil War and Reconstruction
    HS 693: Honors Seminar
  • Adjunct Assistant Professor
    HS 514: The American Civil War and Reconstruction (Spring 2009)
    HS 577: Topics in American Legal and Constitutional History, 1787-1905 (Spring 2008
  • Lecturer (Spring 2006, Fall 2006)
    HS 300: Legal History and Constitutional Change in the Civil War Era



Legal Experience

Significant litigation experience in the areas of Business Litigation, Probate and Fiduciary Litigation, Trade Secrets, Professional Liability, Employment Practices, and Tort Defense, and extensive appellate experience on the state and federal level, including briefing and conducting oral argument in the Massachusetts Appeals Court, Supreme Judicial Court, a United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and briefing in the United States Supreme Court.
 

Selected Conferences and Appearances

"Irish Americans and the Affirmation of Naturalized Citizenship," 2008 Society of Civil War Historians Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 16, 2008 (Thomas J. Brown, Chair, co-presenters Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Elizabeth Leonard)

"Proof of Loyalty: Irish Americans, African Americans, Military Service, and the Redefinition Of Citizenship During The Civil War Era," 2007 Organization of American Historians Meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 30, 2007 (Elizabeth Leonard, Chair, co-presenters Lorien Foote, Michael Smith, and Andrew Slap)


Selected Organizations and Service

  • Fellow, Massachusetts Historical Society, May 2008-present
  • Member, Board of Overseers, USS Constitution Museum, July 2007-present