Surveying Emancipation

Surveying Emancipation

President Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863 lent new urgency to the question of “what shall we do with the Negroes.” What had been only a possibility a few months before — the freeing of more than 3 million slaves still behind...
Was Civil War About Slavery?

Was Civil War About Slavery?

In the course of our conversation, Yacine Kout mentioned something else—an incident that had happened the previous spring at Eastern Randolph High School just outside Asheboro. On Cinco de Mayo, the annual celebration of Mexico’s defeat of French forces at the Battle...
Civil War St. Patrick's Day

Civil War St. Patrick's Day

It was exactly five months before the deadly battle at Gettysburg, the scene of inestimable carnage, and it was St. Patrick’s Day in the little town of Falmouth, Va., which today just off Interstate 95 on the way to Richmond. Troops of the Irish Brigade were camped...
New Mind of South

New Mind of South

“The New Mind of the South” By Tracy Thompson. Simon & Schuster, 263 pps., $26. Whatever you think the South represents, it is Tracy Thompson’s contention that it’s morphing into something else. “The New Mind of the South” is her collection of essays on what a...
News from Around the South 3/4 – 3/11

News from Around the South 3/4 – 3/11

Virginia: Civil War Sailors Buried ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — More than 150 years after the USS Monitor sank off North Carolina during the Civil War, two unknown crewmen found in the ironclad’s turret when it was raised a decade ago were buried Friday at Arlington...