How many people died during the Civil War? For over a century the standard death count stood at 618,222. But David J. Hacker, a historian at SUNY-Binghamton, begs to differ. In an article recently published in Civil War History, Hacker […]
death
Death Elegies from Gettysburg
Daniel Rolph is the author of “HSP’s Hidden Histories,” a blog sponsored by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In a recent post, Rolph quotes from the death elegies written by some of those who lost family members from […]
Praying at Ground Zero
I don’t know about you, but I have 9-11 commemoration fatigue. There is a part of me that is glad that the ceremonies are over–at least for the moment. Yet, glutton for punishment that I am, I continue to read...
Teaching War
Dwight Simon teaches history to middle-schoolers at Epiphany School in Boston. In this very thoughtful essay at The Smart Set, he reflects on “the seductive stories of mankind’s battles.” …as a teacher of history, as a teacher of wars, imagine...
Drew Gilpin Faust: The Civil War and the Meaning of Life
I am glad to see that The New Republic lifted the subscribers-only wall on this amazing essay on the meaning of war. Drew Gilpin Faust, president of Harvard and the author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American...