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Maudie White Hopkins, who grew up during the Depression in the hardscrabble Ozarks and married a Confederate army veteran 67 years her senior, has died. She was 93.

Over the last few months, celebrations for Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday have drawn attention to the Kentucky native's life and his legacy as president. But the 200-year anniversary of another Kentucky president's birth, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, is receiving mixed reviews. "I'll say it this way - winners write history," said Ron Bryant, a Lexington historian writing a book on Davis. "We need heroes, we need villains. Lincoln became a hero and Davis a villain." Davis was born in what is now Todd County, Ky., in 1808, one year before Lincoln. Davis served as the only president of the 11...

The South Rises Again by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 20, 2008 Academics’ attitudes towards the South color their teaching about the region, particularly lessons on the Civil War, and their histories, thus, often project myth rather than reality. “Many historians, myself excepted, go in with an argument before they have done their research and seek to impose their present policy positions on the past,” University of Pennsylvania historian Walter McDougall said on March 11 in an appearance at the Cato Institute here. “I prefer to go in plug ignorant.” McDougall is the author of the recently released Throes of Democracy:...

A man in his 50s died this afternoon in an explosion at a house in Chester caused by what appeared to be a Civil War ordnance, police said. No other information about the victim was immediately available.

Rep. Ron Paul told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" Sunday that the war was a mistake – the American Civil War. "Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war…. [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic," Paul said.

Ron Paul appeared on "Meet the Press" over the weekend, and gave voice to a sentiment scarcely heard in American politics. He claimed that the Civil War was unnecessary, and that Lincoln "never should have gone to war" to stop slavery. A better approach would have been for the federal government to simply purchase freedom for all of the slaves in the country. Watch Ron Paul on Meet the Press [YouTube]: Of course, such a program sounds more than a little strange coming from a man who is so mistrustful of government that he wants to abolish the Department of...

Bill Styple and time have a peculiar relationship. He lives in the present, writes about the past and wants to save both the present and the past for the future of his town. "I just want to preserve for our children a little of what I and my parents had in the past," says Styple, 46, who, with others from Kearny, is about to give the Hudson County town, its residents and its children a gift: A statue of a Civil War soldier. A replica of a statue that, for nearly 50 years until 1933, stood mute guard before the...

...he was stunned to see two large Confederate flags flying from trucks...emblazoned with the words "The South Shall Rise Again." I'm stunned, too, that people still think it is cool to fly this flag. Our society should bury these flags -- not flaunt them...because the Confederate flag symbolizes racial tyranny to so many... ...This flag doesn't belong on city streets, in videos or in the middle of civil discussion. It belongs in our past -- in museums and in history books -- along with the ideas it represents.

Any attempt to judge our history by today’s standards — out of the context from which it occurred — is at best problematic and at worst dishonest. For example, consider the following quotes: “So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.” “ ... there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.” By today’s standards, the person who made the first statement, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, would be considered enlightened....

Last month, Ithaca High School administrators sent a letter home with students, informing their parents that the flag of the Confederacy had been banned. Ithaca High School students can no longer display the emblem on belt buckles, t-shirts, or anywhere else while on school property. Apparently, the students wearing their Dixie Outfitters t-shirts, in a proud nod to our country’s better half, were white. It is unfortunate that civil liberties apply only to those in privileged groups, such as blacks or Hispanics.Because the United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of protecting the freedom of speech exercised in displaying...

May is ‘Confederate History and Heritage Month’ May 22,2006 Mike Parker North Carolina has two memorial days in May. One is coming up next Monday — this year on May 29. Everyone knows about this Memorial Day. The other passed without notice in most places. That day is May 10, the date set in North Carolina law as “Confederate Memorial Day.” Both memorial days have a common bond. Their observances sprang from the same war — the bloody cataclysm that took place from 1861 to 1865 when the Confederate States of America struggled desperately to maintain its status as an...

North America isn't exactly coming apart. But it is constantly on the move, and the latest discovery of geologic creep has surprised scientists. During the last Ice Age, large portions of North America were blanketed by giant glaciers. Although they’ve been gone for more than 10,000 years, the land they once rested upon is still recovering from the weight. Parts of North America and other continents are slowly rising due to an effect called post-glacial rebound. That much geologists knew. But it turns out this slow recovery is also causing a very small horizontal shift, said Eric Calais, a geophysicist...

This Day In History | Civil War December 13 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia repulses a series of attacks by General Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg, Virginia. The defeat was one of the most decisive loses for the Union army, and it dealt a serious blow to Northern morale in the winter of 1862-63. Burnside assumed command of the Army of the Potomac in November after George McClellan failed to pursue Lee into Virginia following the Battle of Antietam on September 17. Burnside immediately crafted a plan to move...

Confederate heritage groups got excited when Gov. Bob Riley's annual proclamation designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month dropped a paragraph saying slavery was the cause of the Civil War. The groups were pleased because they consider that description of slavery historically inaccurate. Their excitement, however, was short lived. "It was a mistake," said Jeff Emerson, the governor's communications director, on Monday. He said he did not know how the mistake was made. Emerson said the governor was unaware of the deletion until The Associated Press contacted his office. The governor quickly reissued the proclamation with the paragraph on...

I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.) Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. There used...

By CRISTINA RODRIGUEZ Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Six Confederate soldiers whose bodies were dumped into a hastily dug grave after a Civil War battle will receive a proper burial later this month, more than a year after their remains were discovered by a hunter. The reburial is planned for March 20, almost 141 years after the men were cut down while facing Union troops in 1863 during a struggle for the Mississippi River port of Helena, Ark. The remains were found in a forest in the fall of 2002, when a hunter discovered a few bones and called...

Terrorism in American is more than just a modern phenomenon. A University of Arkansas history professor who spoke on campus Thursday said during the Civil War the military on both sides terrorize civilians to keep control over communities.-- Ty West, staff reporter Daniel Sutherland, a University of Arkansas history professor, talks about the use of terrorism during the American Civil War. Photo By Michelle Lepianka The recent terrorist attacks on the United States have brought terrorism to the forefront in American culture, but terrorism has deep roots in America, especially in the South.That was the point made by Daniel...

DANVILLE, Va. - Dr. James I. "Buddy" Robertson said Wednesday that emotion is the key element in the movie "Gods and Generals."Robertson, a renowned Civil War historian, was the historical consultant on the Warner Bros./Ted Turner movie that features Confederate Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson as its main character."Gods and Generals" is an adaptation of a book written by Jeff Shaara and is the prequel to "The Killer Angels," on which the film "Gettysburg" was based.The movie deviates from the book with a healthy dose of Jackson's character taken from Robertson's biography."This is the greatest Civil War movie ever made,"...

The largest amphibious military landing before D-Day happened on Hilton Head Island. Talk of the South's secession from the Union began in Bluffton.Three major battles were fought in Jasper County, killing hundreds of men. Later, in the last year of the war, Sherman marched though and burned everything those battles didn't destroy.The Lowcountry certainly has its share of Civil War history. In March, it'll also have its share of Civil War historians.The Lowcountry Civil War Roundtable will host its second annual South Atlantic Civil War Symposium March 27-29, featuring a dozen of the nation's top military historians. The symposium is...

<p>MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (AP) --Ask most schoolchildren and they will tell you that Robert E. Lee was a military genius while Ulysses S. Grant was a butcher who simply used the North's advantage in men and material to bludgeon the Confederates into submission.</p>

America’s cultural elite has apparently decided that a new round of demonization of Southerners is in order and is busy eradicating all semblances of Southern heritage, especially the Confederate battle flag, from any and all public places. Now that there are no problems at all with the black family structure in the inner cities, nor with crime or poverty or education there, the NAACP is spending resources battling anyone who wants to fly a Confederate flag anywhere at any time. It is all reminiscent of how the Soviets and other communist regimes rewrote their own history as a means of...

KENNESAW - The museum at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park is scheduled to reopen Saturday.It has been closed since 1997 to undergo renovations.A national park ranger and curator - Retha Stephens - says the park strived to take the museum a step beyond the ordinary.The museum in Marietta uses artifacts from the battle and a new documentary to examine Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's complete trip through Georgia.The films and exhibits consider the effects of battle not only on Union and Confederate troops but also on citizens.A timeline stretching from the rumblings of a Civil War to Union...

Jeff Shaara said his father would have been thrilled to know his book "The Killer Angels" was chosen for the "One Book, Two Counties" program in Cumberland and Dauphin counties. "His one goal was to leave something behind he'd be remembered for," Shaara said to more than 260 people who packed into Dickinson College's Rubendall Recital Hall Monday evening.Shaara then spent several minutes weaving a tale that began in 1964, when he and his father, Michael Shaara, visited the Gettysburg Battlefield for the first time."I was a kid and I was the Civil War buff," he says, explaining that's why...

Walter Williams is hosting for Rush and is slamming Lincoln on States Rights.

There have been many threads in recent years on the FreeRepublic forum regarding the issues involved in the breakup of the former republic via the secession of the Southern states in 1860-61.The purpose of this thread is to take a look at the "secessionists" and how and why they sought that "ultimate remedy" as a solution to the problems that they faced as a people.I admit to an unabashedly pro-secessionist worldview; if man hasn't the right to secession then what does that make him?I would ask that certain individuals restrain themselves from posting on this thread so that I, and...