This piece first ran in The Dallas Morning News on June 16, 2013. Fort Hood is the Army installation in Killeen, halfway between Austin and Waco. The base opened in January 1942, serving as a training center for soldiers joining artillery and anti-tank units. Today, it’s the Army’s largest active-duty armored post, a base where …
(This article first appeared on the site of The Washington Monthly on May 26, 2013.) As it happens, I have an article today in the Times’ review section wondering why we continue to have US Army bases named after Confederate generals. There are at least ten: Forts Lee, Pickett and Hill in Virginia; Fort Bragg …
This article was original published in The New York Times on May 26, 2013. IN the complex and not entirely complete process of reconciliation after the Civil War, honoring the dead with markers, tributes and ceremonies has played a crucial role. Some of these gestures, like Memorial Day, have been very successful. The practice of …
With a lovely party at the handsome Greenwich Village apartment of Times editor rish Hall, editors George Kalogerakis and Clay Risen of the Opinionator section, a number of their colleagues, and a bunch of us who contributed to the paper’s Disunion series, celebrated the publication of Disunion, a collection of articles from the series, published …
Written by Juli Weiner, encouraged by Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair plugged my book this week with an article called “The Book of Levon Celebrates the Man in the Band.” Very nice indeed. Thanks to one and all. Here’s how it reads: “Nearly a year after the death of Levon Helm, the Band’s twangy and tender-hearted …
For those of you who may have lain awake at night wondering “Geez, were there six men who could have prevented the Civil war from becoming a murderous army vs. army conflagration, please avail yourself of the opportunity to pick up the April issue of The Civil War Times, and read my article “Six Men …
This year that is fast disappearing will not be remembered in these quarters with very much warmth. It was a fairly hideous, sickening year, the year that I felt I got old. But like all good things, the bad ones come to an end as well, and thanks to some much appreciated end of the …
On this, the 150th anniversary of the battle of Antietam, which, thank God, has not yet been replaced as the bloodiest day in American history, please allow me to recommend a new history of the battle, Richard Slotkin‘s The Long Road to Antietam. As the title suggests, the book is about much more than the …
Many thanks to Miguel Hernandez (above, holding the top hat) and my new friends at the Ossining Historical Society for inviting me to participate in their Civil War Days event yesterday at the Campwoods Meeting Ground. I had a terrific afternoon talking about Civil War history, discussing my book, and learning about Ossining history. I …
In an amazing story in The Huffington Post the other day, Laura Hibbard reported that fourth graders at the James A. Jackson Elementary School in Jonesboro GA were assigned a math problem referencing slavery. “A plantation owner had 100 slaves,” the question read, according to the station. “If three-fifths of them are counted for representation, …