This winter we ask questions and uncover some answers about the Civil War, and consider the Confederate battle flag in American history, culture, and public spaces.
As kids, we obviously lacked a lot of factual information, but age and ignorance were not our only sources of confusion. Instead, as Americans and white southerners both, we couldn't be entirely sure who "we" were.
"Estimating the Civil War's cost can be a difficult and unseemly business, according to the author. Yet economists and historians keep arguing over the figure."
"This campaign was bloodless, fought with pen rather than sword. But the ex-Confederate officers who founded the Southern Historical Society were determined to advance their cause."
"Through more than three dozen photographs, the author reveals the battle flag's history and its symbolism."
"The author argues that the time has come to give up the Confederate battle flag as a public symbol. A sense of southern identity, though, should be preserved."
University of North Carolina Press, 1994
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995
University Press of Virginia, 1993
New York University Press, 1994
Oxford University Press, 1994
University of Georgia Press, 1995
The University of North Carolina Press, 1994
University of Missouri Press, 1993.
"This time, our pollster asks the question, 'Do you agree or disagree that, if it could be done without war, the South would be better off as a separate country today?'"
"I remember my own father and uncles returning from World War II with stories of how southerners, particularly rural and working-class ones, were denigrated and ridiculed by conscripted urbanites for their speech, manners, attitudes."
"For relief, I take my eyes off the flag and glance down again at the groundskeeper, who is still pulling the cords to raise the trio of flags."
