150 years ago yesterday, Douglass delivered this Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery. Decoration Day was the predecessor of Memorial Day. Learn more about it here. Here is Douglass: The Unknown Loyal Dead Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, on Decoration […]
Civil War
Allen Guelzo defines the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy
The noted Civil War historian Allen Guelzo offers a nice working definition of the “Lost Cause” in a piece at The Gospel Coalition. He writes: “In its fullest flower, from 1865 to 1915, the Lost Cause emerged—from a legion of […]
The ever-usable John Brown
Here is Yale graduate student Bennett Parten at History Today: …John Brown became an American sensation, a source of both fear and enchantment. Slaveholders reviled him; abolitionists wept for him, tolled bells in his honour and came to see him […]
The Author’s Corner with James Byrd
James Byrd is Professor of American Religious History, Chair of the Graduate Department of Religion and Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Research at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. This interview is based on his new book, A Holy Baptism of […]
The Tennessee Historical Commission voted to remove a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state capitol. State legislators are not happy about it
For the record, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate Army general and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Now here is a taste of Kyle Horan’s story at NewsChannel 5 in Nashville: Not even two weeks after […]
Putting the January 6, 2021 insurrection in historical context
Catherine Halley of JSTOR Daily offers some great resources. Here is a taste of her January 7 piece: Yesterday our friends who teach sixth grade were asking: how do I talk to my students about the insurrection that just happened […]
Quote of the day
John Stuart Mill on why the rebellion of the Confederacy was not justified: “Did ever any other section of a nation break through the solemn contract which united them with the rest, for no reason but that they were defeated […]
The Author’s Corner with Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang is Associate Professor of History and Graduate Coordinator at Mississippi State University. This interview is based on his new book, A Contest of Civilizations: Exposing the Crisis of American Exceptionalism in the Civil War Era (The University of […]
Like Biden, Abraham Lincoln also faced the potential of violence on Inauguration Day
Here is historian Ted Widmer at The Washington Post: Washington had been unusually angry in the weeks preceding Inauguration Day. Seven states had already left the Union; a mob had tried to attack the Capitol on the day Congress met […]
Will Trumpism endure?
Yale Historian David Blight argues that “Trumpism has already become a lethal Lost Cause.” Here is a taste of his piece at The New York Times: If, as many Civil War scholars have suggested, the Confederate Lost Cause was born […]
Civil War historians remind us that anti-democratic violence has “deep roots” in the United States
Historians Gregory Downs and Kate Masur edit The Journal of the Civil War Era. In a recent piece at The Washington Post, they remind us that what we saw on January 6, 2021 was, in one sense, very American. Here […]
When 20th-century students memorized “Dixie” and “long lists of forgettable governors”
Over at The Montgomery Advertiser, Brian Lyman reports on the treatment of the Confederacy in Southern history textbooks: For much of the 20th century, southern classrooms treated Black history — when they touched the subject at all — as a sideshow to […]
Three new books on the underground railroad
Over at The New Republic historian Eric Herschthal reviews: Jonathan Daniel Wells, The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War; John Harris, The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the […]
The 1860 election led to Civil War, but it was decided fairly
Here is historian Ted Widmer at The New York Times: On Nov. 6, Lincoln was duly elected. But his percentage of the popular vote was very small (39.8 percent) — below even Herbert Hoover’s in 1932, when Hoover lost in […]
The Author’s Corner with Kenneth Noe
Kenneth Noe is Draughon Professor of Southern History at Auburn University. This interview is based on his new book, The Howling Storm: Weather, Climate, and the American Civil War (LSU Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write The Howling […]
When the United States held an election during a civil war
Here is Jonathan White of Christopher Newport University: With President Trump’s illness disrupting his campaigning and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic afflicting Americans across the country, some commentators have wondered whether the 2020 election should be postponed. But the election of […]
The Author’s Corner with Louis DeCaro, Jr.
Louis DeCaro, Jr. is Associate Professor of Church History at Alliance Theological Seminary. He has also kept a blog on John Brown since 2005. This interview is based on his new book, The Untold Story of Shields Green: The Life […]
Historians gather at Civil War sites to tell the full story
Civil War historians gathered at historical sites on Saturday “in an effort to highlight distortions, omissions and the erasure of Black contributions.” The event was sponsored by The Journal of the Civil War Era as part of an initiative called […]
How Abraham Lincoln challenged the power of the Supreme Court
How did Abraham Lincoln challenged a Supreme Court dominated by pro-slavery ideologues? Princeton historian Matthew Karp answers this question in his latest piece at Jacobin. Here is a taste: Across the late 1850s, Lincoln argued that “the American people,” not the Supreme […]
What is historical contingency?
Parts of this post are based on my book Why Study History: Reflecting on the Importance of the Past. In a recent piece at The Atlantic, Yale historian Joanne Freeman writes about Hamilton: The Musical: It has also gained new relevance over time, promoting […]