Civil War

Gov. Ralph Northam announced that the monument honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee will removed "as soon as possible."

NPR's Steve Inskeep, discussing his book Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Fremont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity and Helped Cause the Civil War, touches on parallels to U.S. politics in 2020.

Daniel Brook has written a book that goes a long way toward injecting thoughtfulness into popular notions of the history of race and racism in America but doesn't delve far enough into class conflict.

The state's previous social studies standards listed three causes for the Civil War: sectionalism, states' rights and slavery, in that order.

There's an episode of The Johnny Cash Show from 1969 where the man himself makes a little speech with a pretty big error. "Here's a song that was reportedly sung by both sides in the Civil War," Cash says, guitar in hand, to kick off a performance of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The real history is clear: Julia Ward Howe wrote the song as a pro-Union, anti-slavery anthem. But then Cash goes on to say, " .... which proves to me that a song can belong to all of us." And about that, he's right.