Duke's lasting impact was as a historian and communicator of the Confederate experience. As a historian he helped to found the Filson Club Historical Society and started the preserving of the Shiloh battlefield. He wrote numerous books and magazine articles, most notably in the "Southern Bivouac". When he died, he was one of the few high-ranking Confederate officers still alive. Historian James A. Ramage said of Duke, "No Southerner was more dedicated to the Confederacy than General Basil W. Duke."