The Power of Names
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Two events in November reinforced the power of calling out names of previously forgotten people.
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The Black Military Experience in the Civil War
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A fascinating talk by Leslie Rowland, director of the Freedmen & Southern Society Project, on the Black Military Experience during the Civil War—drawn from National Archives documents.
Read MoreMason's Island: or A Bully Little Island in the Potomac*
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Notes from a talk about Theodore Roosevelt Island by NPS expert Brad Krueger, who also spurred my visit there last weekend.
Read MoreHow a Paragraph Helped Win the War
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Paragraph 6 of the Emancipation Proclamation ushered in a new era. Here's how.
Read MoreCemeteries in Old Alexandria
/Last night's episode of Mercy Street included a poignant scene in which the Green and Fairfax families attempted to bury Tom Fairfax. No matter one's sympathies, seeing a funeral disrupted at gunpoint was not pleasant.
Read MoreBook Topic: Civil War Washington
/In 1942, Margaret Leech won a Pulitzer for her book Reveille in Washington 1860-1865. The book was one of the first--maybe the first?--to describe Washington as a living, breathing, and, it would have to be said, smelling place, filled with characters large and small.
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