Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed that historian Benson J. Lossing did more than any other man to make history interesting and popular. Lossing wrote his comprehensive history of the Civil War at a time when the facts were still fresh.

Benson John Lossing (1813-1891) was a prolific and popular American historian, known best for his illustrated books on the American Revolution and American Civil War and features in Harper's Magazine. He was a Charter Trustee of Vassar College.