Arlington National Cemetery (Arlington) is removing its Confederate Memorial, as mandated by the Congress’s authorizing the Naming Commission to rename and/or remove Department of Defense assets that commemorate the Confederate States of America (CSA) or any person who voluntarily served with the CSA against the United States. [Read more…] about Arlington National Cemetery Removing Confederate Memorial
Reconstruction
Kermit Roosevelt III: The Nation That Never Was
In his book The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story (University of Chicago Press, 2022), Kermit Roosevelt III argues that a traditional American narrative – “that our fundamental values as a country were stated in the Declaration of Independence, fought for in the Revolution, and made law in the Constitution”– is neither useful nor true.
Instead, he writes, we should look to the 19th century, to the period following Abraham Lincoln‘s Gettysburg Address, “when it was possible to envision the emergence of the nation committed to liberty and equality.” [Read more…] about Kermit Roosevelt III: The Nation That Never Was
Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life
Benjamin Franklin Butler was one of the most important and controversial military and political leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.
In her new biography, Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2022), Elizabeth D. Leonard chronicles Butler’s successful career in the law defending the rights of the Lowell Mill girls and other workers, his achievements as one of Abraham Lincoln’s premier civilian generals, and his role in developing wartime policy in support of fugitives from enslavement as the nation advanced toward emancipation. [Read more…] about Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life