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Tobias Menzies (right) as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in "Manhunt."

The Real History Behind Apple TV+'s 'Manhunt' and the Search for Abraham Lincoln's Killer

A new series dramatizes Edwin Stanton's hunt for John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators in the aftermath of the president’s 1865 assassination.
A supporter of Donald Trump holds a Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after the crowd breached the building as Congress was proceeding with the electoral vote certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump's 'Lost Cause,' a Kind of Gangster Cult, Won't Go Away

Lost cause narratives sometimes have been powerful enough to build or destroy political regimes. They can advance a politics of grievance.
Nikki Haley, 2023.

Nikki Haley's Slavery Omission Typifies the GOP's Tragic Pact with White Supremacy

How the Southern Strategy of the late 20th century gave rise to the modern GOP.
Ginger R. Stephens (center), a Virginia leader of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, joined other celebrants at a 2018 commemoration of Jefferson Davis’s birthday.

Yes, They’re Pro-Confederacy. But They’re Just the Nicest Ladies!

You can call the United Daughters of the Confederacy a lot of things. But racist? Why, some of their best friends…

Mildred Rutherford’s War

The “historian general” of the United Daughters of the Confederacy began the battle over the depiction of the South in history textbooks that continues today.
Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust in 2009.

The Bleak, All But-Forgotten World of Segregated Virginia

Former Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust’s extraordinary memoir recalls painful memories for her--and me.
Robert E. Lee.

Disqualifying Trump via Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment

A bad history.
An honor guard displays the colors of Fort Bragg, as part of the ceremony earlier this month to rename it to Fort Liberty.

Who Was Fort Bragg Named After? The South’s Worst, Most Hated General.

Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis say they would restore the Fort Bragg name if elected. Its namesake was a “merciless tyrant” who helped lose the Civil War.
The sillhouette of a Civil War statue on a night sky.

The Spirit of Appomattox

Why is Shelby Foote's Civil War subject to so much contemporary debate?
The statue Sons of St. Augustine depicting Alexander Darnes and Edmund Kirby Smith.

The Doctor and the Confederate

A historian’s journey into the relationship between Alexander Darnes and Edmund Kirby Smith starts with a surprising eulogy.
Photo of Abraham Lincoln in front of images of infrastructure and currency.

How the U.S. Paid for the Civil War

Lincoln's wartime governance had dire, and longstanding, economic consequences.
illustration of Civil War soldier carrying sack of gold

A Lost Trove of Civil War Gold, an FBI Excavation, and Some Very Angry Treasure Hunters

“I’m going to find out what the hell the FBI did and I’m going to expose it to the world.”
Civil War veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic, Cazenovia, New York, circa 1900.

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

The Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.
Ballet Folklorico de la Tierra del Encanto dancers entertain attendees during the Cinco De Mayo Fiesta on the plaza in Mesilla, N.M., on May 6, 2017.
partner

Cinco De Mayo: American As Apple Empanadas

Cinco de Mayo has deep roots in Mexican American history.
Cover for a book of scrip for use at American Potash and Chemical’s company stores, 1937.

Greenbacks, Chits, and Scrip

Alternative currencies flourish in desperate times and situations.
Artistic collage of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.

Was Emancipation Constitutional?

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?
Sheet music cover for Civil War marching song "The Bonnie Blue Flag," featuring two flags used by Confederate states.

We Are a Band of Brothers

Why are so many songs of the Confederacy indelibly inscribed in my Yankee memory?
Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, and Harry Belafonte near the podium at Montgomery March in 1965.

The “Radical” King and a Usable Past

On Martin Luther King's use of radical ideas to create an understanding of the history of America.
U.S. Supreme Court

Reading the 14th Amendment

A review of three books about Abraham Lincoln, the 14th Amendment, and Reconstruction.
Chart of when Confederate monuments and namings occurred, with peaks in the 1910s and the 1960s.

Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy

A Southern Poverty Law Center study identified over 1,500 publicly-displayed symbols of the Confederacy in the South and beyond.

Alabama’s Capitol Is a Crime Scene. The Cover-up Has Lasted 120 Years.

How more than a century of whitewashed history poisons Alabama today.
Plantation house in the snow.

The Grim History of Christmas for Slaves in the Deep South

"If you read enough sources, you run into cases of slaves spending a lot of time over Christmas crying."
partner

West Virginia's Founding Politicians Understood Democracy Better than Today's

They believed that wealth should have no bearing on a citizen’s voting power.
Elmwood Cemetery, where Henry Ellett, Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward are buried

A Deadly Introduction

Who was Henry Ellett? Looking at his grave you wouldn't know much about him.
Left: Longfellow in His Study, by Worth Brehm, c. 1912. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Right: Dante Meditating on “The Divine Comedy”, by Jean-Jacques Feuchère, 1843.

As Far From Heaven as Possible

How Henry Wadsworth Longfellow interpreted Reconstruction by translating Dante.
Image of John C. Calhoun

How Slavery Haunts Today’s Big Debates About Federal Spending

John C. Calhoun knew what a strong federal government might do.
Photo of Union commanders.

The Anti-Lee

George Henry Thomas, southerner in blue.
Join or Die woodcut of a chopped up rattlesnake representing un-unified colonies.
partner

The Serpents of Liberty

From the colonial period to the end of the US Civil War, the rattlesnake sssssssymbolized everything from evil to unity and power.
Statue of Dred Scott and wife

Allegiance, Birthright, and Race in America

What the Dred Scott v. Sandford case meant for black citizenship.
A supporter of US President Donald Trump holds a Confederate flag outside the Senate Chamber during a protest after breaching the US Capitol in Washington, DC, January 6, 2021. - The demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification.

Jan. 6 Was a "Turning Point" in American History

Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on the battle for the past and the fragile state of American democracy.

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