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American Civil War

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A Topic Best Avoided

After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln faced the issue of sorting out a nation divided over the issue of freed slaves. But what were his views on it?
by Nicholas Guyatt via London Review of Books on December 1, 2011
Confederate soldier with wife and baby.
partner

Fighting for Home

How the idea of “home” motivated Confederate soldiers, and strengthened their resolve to fight.
via BackStory on March 31, 2011

How Poverty Was, and Was Not, Pictured Before the Civil War

Images were important in defining the Republic between the Revolution and the Civil War and they distinctively both did and did not show Americans in need.
by Jonathan Prude via Commonplace on April 12, 2010

Making Sense of Robert E. Lee

“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”— Robert E. Lee, at Fredericksburg
by Roy Blount Jr. via Smithsonian on July 1, 2003
Exhibit

Civil War Memory

Historical understandings and myths about the Civil War's causes, meanings, and legacies still shape American culture and national discourse about the country's future.
Circus Sideshow, by Georges Seurat, 1887–88.

Unforgettable

W.E.B. Du Bois on the beauty of sorrow songs.
via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 1, 1903
Political cartoon of Freedman's Bureau agent separating angry whites from defensive freedmen.

The Freedmen's Bureau

“No sooner had Northern armies touched Southern soil than this old question, newly guised, sprang from the earth: What shall be done with slaves?”
by W.E.B. Du Bois via The Atlantic on March 1, 1901

The Johnson Party

An 1866 essay presents Andrew Johnson as "the virtual leader of the Southern reactionary party."
by E. P. Whipple via The Atlantic on September 1, 1866
Collage of photos of Lionel Trilling.

Lionel Trilling and the Limits of Crisis-Thought

Lionel Trilling defends humanism amid crisis culture, warning that obsessing over evil can erode the self and our capacity for moral and creative agency.
by Sam Gee via The Hedgehog Review on September 3, 2025
A white hand gives a key to another white hand, bypassing a Black hand.

What We Miss When We Talk About the Racial Wealth Gap

Six decades of civil-rights efforts haven’t budged the racial wealth gap, and the usual prescriptions—including reparations—offer no lasting solutions.
by Idrees Kahloon via The New Yorker on July 28, 2025
Mary Virginia Montgomery

The Montgomerys of Mississippi: How a Once Enslaved Family Bought Jefferson Davis’ Plantation House

In 1872, former slave Mary Virginia Montgomery, now a cotton plantation owner, records her life’s changes after moving from slavery to self-sufficiency.
by Neely Tucker via Library of Congress Blog on July 10, 2025
JD Vance

J.D. Vance's Anti-Declaration

Truths self-evident no more.
by John Ganz via Unpopular Front on July 9, 2025
Statue of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Wasn't Born an Abolitionist, He Became One

We live in polarized times when freedom is threatened but this Juneteenth we should remind ourselves that we have overcome far worse.
by Manisha Sinha via The UnPopulist on June 19, 2025
Civil War soldiers on the cover of James Marten's book "The Sixth Wisconsin"

Ancestry.com and the Long Civil War

The sad remnants of a soldier’s life revealed through probate and Ancestry offer a moving glimpse into the afterlife of Civil War service.
by James Marten via UNC Press Blog on June 16, 2025
John Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 1819.

Who Invented the “Founding Fathers?”

The making of a myth.
by George Dillard via Looking Through The Past on May 21, 2025
Indigenous girl among a line of U.S. peace commissioners.

American History Needs More Names

Identifying Sophie Mousseau from a Civil War-Era photo helps us understand our complex past.
by Martha A. Sandweiss via Zócalo Public Square on April 21, 2025
A monument of the Minutemen line in Concord, Massachusetts.
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The Dangerous Afterlives of Lexington and Concord

How a myth about farmers taking on the British has fueled more than two centuries of exclusionary nationalism.
by Eran A. Zelnik via HNN on April 15, 2025
A drawing of cannons being fired at Fort Sumter.

What Can We Learn From the Jewish Debate Over Slavery?

This Passover, American Jews should embrace the fight for “emancipation of all kinds.”
by Richard Kreitner via Slate on April 10, 2025
General Ulysses S. Grant receiving Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
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Appomattox Exposes the Dangers of Myths Replacing History

Historians have revealed that the story Americans long learned about the end of the Civil War was a myth.
by Elizabeth R. Varon via Made By History on April 9, 2025
A collage of pages from the National Park service website, including one about Appomattox Court House and one about the Underground Railroad, showing language stricken out since Donald Trump's innauguration in 2025.

Amid Anti-DEI Push, National Park Service Rewrites History of Underground Railroad

Since Trump took office, the park service — charged with preserving American history — has changed how it describes key moments from slavery to Jim Crow.
by Jon Swaine, Jeremy B. Merrill via Washington Post on April 6, 2025
Slave auction in the United States.

How a Group of 19th-Century Historians Helped Relativize the Violent Legacy of Slavery

On the scholarship and intellectual legacies of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, William Dunning and other academics.
by Scott Spillman via Literary Hub on March 10, 2025
Historian Martha S. Jones and photos of her relatives.

How a Leading Black Historian Uncovered Her Own Family’s Painful Past

Martha S. Jones’ new memoir draws on genealogical research and memories shared by relatives.
by Martha S. Jones, Sara Georgini via Smithsonian on March 5, 2025
A family of formerly enslaved people outside their house in Fredericksburg, Virginia, circa 1862–1865.

The Missing Persons of Reconstruction

Enslaved families were regularly separated​. A new history chronicles the tenacious efforts of the emancipated to be reunited​ with their loved ones.
by Joshua D. Rothman via The New Republic on February 26, 2025
A drawing of a scuba diver holding a flare, exploring the wreck of a slave ship underwater.

Dredging Up the Ghostly Secrets of Slave Ships

A global network of maritime archeologists is excavating slave shipwrecks—and reconnecting Black communities to the deep.
by Julian Lucas via The New Yorker on February 24, 2025
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1858.

A Constitutionalist or a Revolutionist?

Which one was Abraham Lincoln?
by Herman Belz via Modern Age on February 17, 2025
Frances Thompson holding an umbrella.

Frances Thompson Survived a Race Massacre and Bravely Testified to Congress. Then She Was Slandered.

A Black transgender woman’s testimony helped ratify the 14th Amendment. Then conservatives began attacking her identity.
by Chelsea Bailey via CNN on February 16, 2025
Soldiers walking past a sign that says Fort Liberty.

Pete Hegseth Just Did the Funniest Thing Imaginable

It’s Fort Bragg again. So why are Confederate heritage groups so mad?
by Kevin M. Levin via Slate on February 12, 2025
Members of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Daughters of Union Veterans gather in Colorado in the 1930s.

Veterans Visit an Idealized West

A gathering of Union veterans in 1883 sheds light on the country's vision of the American West—as a space for reconciliation and a prize won by the war.
by Cecily Nelson Zander via The Civil War Monitor on February 3, 2025
Painting of horsemen in the Caucus mountains.

The Reckless Creation of Whiteness

How an erroneous 18th-century story about the “Caucasian race” led to a centuries of prejudice and misapprehension.
by Erin L. Thompson via The Nation on January 29, 2025
A crib drawn with Stars and Stripes symbolism.

Birthright Citizenship Is a Sacred Guarantee

The attack on it is a violation of the nation’s post–Civil War rebirth.
by David W. Blight via The Atlantic on January 27, 2025
partner

Knight Club

Were the Knights of the Golden Circle responsible for Lincoln’s assassination? No one knows, but far-right secret societies always draw power from speculation.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on January 14, 2025
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