Free Republic

Revisionist history would remove portraits of Confederate legendsThe U.S. Army War College, which molds future field generals, has begun discussing whether it should remove the portraits of Confederate generals, including Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The college, nestled in rural Pennsylvania on the 500-acre Carlisle Barracks, is doing an inventory of all its paintings and photographs with an eye toward rehanging them in historical themes to tell a particular Army stories. During the inventory, an unnamed official — not the commandant, Maj. Gen. Anthony A. Cucolo III — asked the administration why the college is honoring two generals...

In July 1863, just weeks after the twin Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Abraham Lincoln turned his attention to the Rio Grande borderlands of Confederate Texas. On July 31, the president wrote Francis P. Blair Sr., one of his most powerful supporters, “Yesterday I commenced trying to get up an expedition for Texas. I shall do the best I can.” By November, 6,000 Union troops had landed in South Texas. What brought this remote region of the Confederacy to the attention of the American president? The Civil War wasn’t the only conflict on Lincoln’s mind...

Is it possible to teach students the meaning behind President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address without mentioning the Civil War? According to the government’s new Common Core education standards, the Gettysburg Address must be taught without mentioning the Civil War and explaining why President Lincoln was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. …

Finding a treasured piece of history hidden in a file cabinet may be the dream of many, but it happened to Stuyvesant Town Historian Juanita Knott. She recently found what could be handwritten copies of an 1864 newspaper, “The Old Flag” which lists pages of Union soldier prisoners of war during the Civil War, including those from New York state.“I’m not sure if they’re copies or hand-written,” Knott said, carefully turning the yellow, almost crumbling pages of “The Old Flag” newspaper that she had clipped to acid-free paper so as not to destroy this voice from the past.“It’s much too...

The Republican civil war erupted into full view this fall, and the establishment looked like it was about to shove the movement back in line. But the early skirmishes ended with the tea party no weaker than it was.

Today is the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s words helped heal our wounded nation. Lincoln predicted, “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom,” and he was right. The trajectory of the war and the nation itself course-corrected back to the republic our founding documents envisioned – a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” We are still that nation! Thank you sincerely to the beautiful people we’ve met on this book tour so far. They embody all the best of this great...

Ted Cruz isn’t opting out of the Gettysburg anniversary like some presidents we know. Instead, he created this tribute:

If Barack Obama had delivered the Gettysburg Address:Four score and seven years ago, a group of exclusively white, privileged, Native-American-killing and often slave-owning land-owners brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in antiquated notions of liberty but what we now know ought to have been the Common Good, and dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, transgendered and hermaphroditic persons are entitled to equal things. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, actually deserves to endure. We are met on a great battlefield...

Libya's deputy intelligence chief Mustafa Nuh was abducted Sunday in Tripoli, a security official said, as the capital observed a three-day strike after deadly unrest triggered fears of civil war. The violence was the deadliest in the city since the 2011 uprising and erupted Friday when demonstrators took to the streets to protest against an unruly militia of ex-rebels who helped to topple dictator Moamer Kadhafi. At least 43 people were killed and more than 450 wounded in violence that raged overnight and into Saturday, the health ministry said. Tripoli city council late Saturday announced a three-day strike across the...

Ever since Abraham Lincoln delivered his stirring Gettysburg Address at that great battlefield in Pennsylvania 150 years ago, people have been parsing it. Almost immediately, Sen. Charles Sumner compared it to great Greek literature, a thought echoed by historian Garry Wills in our time. But Lincoln’s words weren’t Greek to his audience, and they aren’t Greek to us. As historian Allen Guelzo explained recently, the address is an example of democratic speech, words aimed at his audience that they could easily understand. The crowd gathered that day would have appreciated that the address was so short -- just 272...

Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives. We write today in reconsideration of “The Gettysburg Address,” delivered by then-President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the greatest conflict seen on American soil. Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln’s words “silly remarks,” deserving “a veil of oblivion,” apparently believing...

Tripoli — Libya's eastern zone had already declared political autonomy. This week, it also broke from the state-run oil company. Speaking in Ajdabia, "Political Bureau of Cyrenaica" (PBC) head Ibrahim Said al-Jadhran announced the formation of the "Libyan Oil and Gas Corporation". "The wealth belongs to the entirety of Libya," he told the press on Sunday (November 10th). The Executive Bureau of Cyrenaica issued a resolution to form the new company, which will begin operations in Tobruk before moving to Benghazi. "We are waiting for the reaction of the territories of Tripoli and Fezzan. We hope they co-operate with us,"...

Two professional colorists have combined their skills with photographs and fascination with the American Civil War to create a remarkable series of color photographs from the era. British colorist Jordan Lloyd, 27, met fellow colorist Mads Madsen, 19, from Denmark when he started posting on Madsen's subreddit 'Colorized History'. Initially it was Madsen who was colorizing images from the Civil War era, but Lloyd eventually got interested and now the two work together restoring the images, improving their technique by giving each other critiques. Madsen has been interested in the Civil War since he was 12, and was especially fascinated...

GETTYSBURG - He almost was not asked to speak. In October 1863, President Abraham Lincoln received the same plain envelope that was sent to hundreds of people, requesting attendance at a dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery here. Col. Clark E. Carr, a confidant of several U.S. presidents and a member of the commission that organized the event, later admitted that commissioners scrambled to send a more personal invitation after Lincoln indicated he would attend. Asking Lincoln to deliver a “few appropriate thoughts,” Carr said, was “an afterthought.” You see, the dedication's real headliner was Edward Everett. A former secretary...

A former top general and current executive at the Family Research Council says members of the military have considered staging a coup d'état against President, but will not because of civilian control of the military. "People I've spoken to would like to see the military 'fulfill their constitutional duty and take out the president,' " retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin told World Net Daily, a website best known for pushing Obama "birther" conspiracy theories. "Our Constitution puts a civilian in charge of the military and as a result a coup would not be constitutional. You're not going to see...

President Obama has declined an invitation to speak at next month’s ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. The event, slated for Nov. 19 at the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, instead will feature Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and renowned historian James McPherson as the keynote speakers, the Gettysburg National Military Park said in a press release. “President Obama will not attend and the Secretary of Interior will represent the administration,” the park pointed out in the first paragraph of its press release. It’s unclear why Mr. Obama, a noted admirer of President Lincoln, declined the...

“The Establishment Strikes Back.” But this campaign against the tea party will fail, because false assumptions dominate the thinking and plans of America’s Republican establishment. GOP insiders have now declared war on the tea party. They are promising during the 2014 U.S. elections to restore business interests to dominate the GOP, and weaken the tea party influence. “Hopefully we’ll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them,” said former Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio. According to the National Journal, “LaTourette’s new political group, Defending Main Street, aims to raise $8 million to fend off tea-party...

One of my posts on the Civil War just got its 40,000th "view." On December 27, 2011, I posted an article titled The U.S. Constitution and Civil War. It had 42 views that year, 18,728 in 2012 and has had 21,234 so far this year, for a total of 40,004. That amounts to just over thirty percent of the views at my little blog since it began. The progression, suggesting a current level of interest in the Civil War, strikes me as interesting and I thought that maybe others might be similarly interested.For anyone who may be interested, here is...

Despite his brilliant victory at Vicksburg in July, some lingering doubts remained about Gen. Ulysses S. Grant when he took command of the besieged Union forces at Chattanooga, Tenn., on Oct. 23, 1863. .......................................................... But until it proved successful, Grant had angrily denounced the unauthorized assault that chased the rebels away from Chattanooga and brought him glory, muttering that, should it fail, “somebody will suffer.” And Grant had a very particular somebody in mind, a leader he persistently disparaged because he dreaded the man as a rival: Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas.

WASHINGTON - Despite a steady rain, about 250 laid-off federal workers rallied on Capitol Hill Thursday to protest the ongoing shutdown of much of the federal government. Organized by at least two unions, the speakers and attendees blamed Tea Party Republicans for the legislative gridlock that has failed to produce spending authority. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson likened the conservative hard-liners to Civil War insurrectionists. "They lost the battle on the field in 1863," Jackson told the crowd. "They lost the battle at the polls in 2012. They must not take our government." Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi (D-- Calif.)...