Civil War
City of Sedition
I keep thinking I’ll take a break from the American Civil War, but it just keeps shoving itself in my face. And so I keep shoving it in yours. I recently finished an extraordinary book. It had me writing notes to myself in the margins: “check what [someone else] has to say, “compare to X”,…
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Contrabands
Over the course of the last year I became familiar with the use of the term “contrabands” to describe escaped slaves in the American Civil War. Like many terms of the period, it seemed self-explanatory, in an ugly way. A symptom of the racism that was fundamental in the Union as well as in the…
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Road Trip Through History: Gettysburg National Military Park
Our recent trip to Gettysburg was a blast, and not just because I love to stand up in front of a crowd and talk about something I’m interested in. If you get a chance to visit Gettysburg National Military Park during the annual Sacred Trust event,* take it. The event is well-organized. Speakers start and…
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