Here is the Associated Press: A towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, will be taken down on Wednesday as a symbol of racial injustice, more than 130 years after it was erected in tribute to […]
Confederacy
House of Representatives votes to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol
For some historical context on Confederate monuments check out our interview with Karen L. Cox in the latest episode of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. The vote was 285 to 120. This means that 120 Republicans wanted to […]
Episode 85: Reckoning with Confederate Monuments
Historian Karen L. Cox argues that “when it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground.” In this episode, we talk with Cox about the history of Confederate monuments and how the recent racial unrest in the United States […]
Where should we put Confederate monuments? How about cemeteries?
I just ran across Marc Fisher’s piece at The Washington Post on a Virginia “Johnny Reb” statue that was removed and taken to a local cemetery. Here is a taste: “I’m not sure cemeteries get us any closer to a […]
Frederick Douglass: “We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic”
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 […]
Are American conservatives advancing a new “Lost Cause?”
Paul Waldman writes: “Everywhere conservatives look, their view of America’s racial story is being challenged.” Most of our culture war debate right now seem to focus on school curriculum and race. Here is Waldman at The Washington Post: As conservatives […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
Trumpism will be the new “lost cause”
Yesterday in my Pennsylvania History class we were talking about the role that monuments have played at the Gettysburg National Military Park. We are reading Jim Weeks’s excellent book Gettysburg: Memory, Market, and an American Shrine. I gave a brief […]
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 […]
Gettysburg Confederate monuments to get new panels to offer more historical context
Here is Nolan Simmons at Penn Live: Panels will soon be installed near each of 12 Confederate state monuments at Gettysburg National Military Park to offer visitors more context to understand when and under what circumstances they were erected. The […]
Retired Brigadier General: The US Army has “Confederate problem”
Here is Ty Seidule, a former Brigadier General and history professor at West Point: The army started honoring Confederates in the early 20th century and never stopped. The army’s flagship institution, West Point, honors Robert E. Lee with many different […]
How Southern newspapers preserved the Confederacy
Mon, Oct 30, 1944 – 8 · Nashville Banner (Nashville, Tennessee) · Newspapers.com USA Today is running a fascinating and disturbing piece on the way Southern newspapers promoted the Confederacy and the Lost Cause well into the 20th century. The […]
The Author’s Corner with William Barney
William Barney is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This interview is based on his new book, Rebels in the Making: The Secession Crisis and the Birth of the Confederacy (Oxford University Press, 2020). JF: […]