Although best known as a historian of Colonial America and its place in the British Empire, two of Gipson's earliest articles had to do with the Civil War and Reconstruction. His assessment of Andrew Johnson («The Statesmanship of President Johnson: A Study of the Presidential Reconstruction Policy») was published in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review in December 1915; and “The Collapse of the Confederacy” appeared in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review in March 1918.
