Jefferson Davis’s Lesser-Known Nemesis

Henry Stuart Foote and the Confederate President Supported Slavery—But Loathed One Another

On Christmas morning, 1847, six important men assembled at a large boarding house in Washington, D.C., ostensibly for casual, after-breakfast conversation. In the parlance of the era, it was a “mixed” group, of four Southerners and two Northerners. All served in the United States Senate or the House of Representatives, and because of the climate of the times, they had much to discuss. The United States was about to win the Mexican War, and in the process wrest away from its Southern neighbor a massive tract of land, laying the …

by Ben Wynne | August 12, 2020

How the Yellow House Helped Make Washington, D.C. a Slavery Capital

The Notorious Jail Lent Institutional Support to Slavery Throughout the South

by Jeff Forret | July 15, 2020

Washington, D.C., was a capital not just of the United States, but of slavery, serving as a major depot in the domestic slave trade. In the District, enslaved men, women, …

The Civil War Chaplains Who Shaped Modern American Patriotism

In Prisons and Hospitals, Clergy Tended to Fighters While Stoking Familiar Strains of Nationalism

by Benjamin L. Miller | February 13, 2020

Chaplain Henry S. White, of the Fifth Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, was a devout Christian—and so when he was captured by the Confederacy, he naturally led a service for his …

How the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion Came to Be the ‘Greatest Gathering of Conqueror and Conquered’

Fifty Years After the Civil War Battle, Politicians Preached Patriotic Amnesia, While Veterans Attempted to Find Solace

by Thomas R. Flagel | February 6, 2020

The old veterans couldn’t wait to come. Roads ran thick with automobiles and horse buggies. Most arrived on the nation’s sprawling rails. A few walked more than 100 miles. An …

The Heartbreaking Love Letters That Spurred an Ohio Blacksmith to Join John Brown’s Raid

Dangerfield Newby’s Enslaved Wife Wrote Increasingly Desperate Missives That Inspired Her Husband to Join the Abolitionist Rebellion

by Eugene L. Meyer | October 13, 2019

Every October 16 marks the anniversary of John Brown’s historic raid on Harpers Ferry in West Virginia in 1859. Accompanied by 18 supporters, Brown, a radical abolitionist, hoped to …

American History, Theology, and Three Competing Memories of the Civil War

A Yale Historian Explains the Power of Myth and Why History Is Never Over

Interview by Gregory Rodriguez | May 7, 2019

David W. Blight, a historian at Yale University who has written seven books and edited many more, stopped by Zócalo’s offices in December of 2018. Earlier that day, The New …

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