The Lincoln administration understood that it would be unwise to risk a possible armed conflict while already...
Civil War
Examining the initial fractures, course, and ultimate resolution of the Civil War that divided the nation. Decade...
Taking a look at some of the key figures who played important roles during one of our...
Each state had to figure out how the men at the front would submit their votes. Some...
Lincoln was presiding over a bloody civil war with waning popularity. But he steadfastly rejected pleas to...
An unusually civil armistice in the most punishing conflict ever fought on American soil. One hundred and...
The loudest booms people had ever heard and the powerful stench of death on a staggering scale....
The Northern victory was short lived — Southern ideals spread quickly to the West. By Bill Moyers...
Raised in plantation privilege, Mary Boykin Chestnut was unprepared for the trauma of war and defeat. “February...
A number of issues were involved in the Civil War, all inextricably bound to the institution of...
They created self-contained enclaves characterized by a southern Protestantism in sharp contrast to Mexican Catholicism. The defeat...
After winning the Civil War and living in the White House, he decided to see the world....
Slavery was abolished over 150 years ago in the United States, but the hard work of achieving...
The Civil War divided Americans into two kinds of people. David W. Blight tells an amazing story...
Whether we like it or not, John C. Calhoun is still very much with us today. Originally...
It was only midway through the war that Lincoln reached the conclusion that abolishing slavery would preserve...
Americans in the deepest sense went to war in 1861 to resolve the nature of the Union...
Robert Lee was the nation’s most notable traitor since Benedict Arnold. There’s a fabled moment from the...
In the South, segregation reproduced the racial inequality found under slavery. By Angelina Grigoryeva and Martin Ruef...
Were the Copperheads traitors or merely exercising the right to criticize the government? To what extent did...
It was one of the most important Southern cities in the war and the only major Virginian...
In the first year of the Civil War, Union General Benjamin Butler used the term “contraband of...
On the motives of a reluctant memoirist. In late 1884, after delivering an evening lecture at Chickering...
Fully one in four Union fighters was foreign-born. In the summer of 1861, an American diplomat in...
Many questions linger regarding the process and motivations of Lincoln’s burial in Springfield. By Dr. Jeremy PrichardHistorian,...
The United States Colored Troops (USCT) was a branch of the United States Army founded in 1863....
The Harriet Lane engaging in a battery at Pig’s Point By Sara Hale My Grandfather’s account of...
Elizabeth Van Lew was a Richmond, Virginia abolitionist and philanthropist who built and operated an extensive spy...
Alena Kuzmina/Shutterstock.com Christmas tends to assume a strong sense of its own significance in times of protracted conflict....
A One Hundred Dollar Confederate States of America banknote dated December 22, 1862. Issued during the American...