Kit Carson is the only protagonist in The Three-Cornered War who is well-known outside of the Southwest, and western history. But what most Americans know about him are his actions before the Civil War: his work as a guide for John C. Frémont’s expeditions into the West; his fame as an Indian . . .
Read MoreWhen I left academia, my plan was to write a book that I had been thinking about for a while. A book that would tell the complicated story of the Civil War in the Southwest, a theater little-known in American culture and often overlooked (or outright dismissed) in histories of the conflict. . . .
Read MoreIn two recent columns for Civil War Times, historian Gary Gallagher repeats many arguments he has made in the past dismissing scholarly work on the Civil War West – a theater that he defines in his August 2017 column as extending from the Appalachians to the Pacific coast, and from North Carolina . . .
Read MoreFree State of Jones. Directed by Gary Ross. STX Entertainment, 2016. In wide release, June 25, 2016. As I settled into my seat with my notebook, pen, bag of popcorn, and Junior Mints, I muttered to myself, “Please let this be good.” I was in the movie theater, with about twenty other . . .
Read MoreA few weeks ago, I went with Kevin and Michaela Levin to see Suzan-Lori Parks’ new play, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3) at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The play is part of a longer cycle (there will ultimately be nine parts) but this . . .
Read MoreAs I turned off the highway and onto the county road, I made the call. My husband answered. “I’m going in,” I said. “Okay,” he replied, “Let me know when you’re out.” We hung up and I drove on, squinting in the sun, trying to find the brown road sign denoting a . . .
Read MoreOne of the first items you see in the New-York Historical Society’s exhibition on Civil War textiles is a giant cotton bale. Its burlap bagging is shredded so that the cotton mushrooms up out of it, released from the tension of compaction. Behind it is a photograph of a Confederate fortification at . . .
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