Hope everyone is having a pleasant Memorial Day and has spent a little time in thought about why we set aside this day. President Obama decided to spend Memorial Day at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Illinois. In the spirit of acknowledging sacred sites beyond Arlington National Cemetery here is a news article and [...]
Ulysses S. Grant
Last month I started reading Harry Turtledove’s Guns of the South. While I was excited at the beginning my enthusiasm quickly waned to the point where I haven’t picked it up in about 3 weeks. Perhaps I will get back to it over the summer, but it doesn’t look good. I’ve never been enthusiastic about [...]
Civil War memory is indeed a very strange landscape. Up until today I would have said that the once widely held view that slavery was benign and that the slaves themselves remained loyal throughout the war reflects its most absurd side. However, the folks over at Richard Williams’s site have somehow managed to trump even [...]
Richmond Reflects on its Past New Exhibit on Native Guards Opening at African American Military History Museum in Hattiesburg, Mississippi (No, they were not “black Confederates”) National Civil War Chaplains Museum Opens at Liberty University (catch the special on really bad Civil War art prints) Sean Wilentz reviews Joan Waugh’s new biography/memory study of Ulysses [...]
I‘m behind in my APUS History classes which has forced me to move quickly through the Civil War. You can imagine how frustrating that is given my interests. Regardless, I am very particular about the language I use to describe the past and I expect my students to be attentive to such matters as well. [...]
Interestingly, this film was done in 1982, well before the YouTube Era. You will have to excuse me, but for some reason I find this sort of video to be quite funny. This one clearly reflects the persistence of the “Grant the Drunk” narrative. A more recent video that depicts Grant with bottle can be [...]
While looking through some “sexually explicit” images related to the Civil War I came across this interesting collection by artist, Justine Lai. The artist is based in San Francisco. Lai has this to say about her first Online exhibit titled, “Join or Die”: In Join Or Die, I paint myself having sex with the Presidents [...]
