“You have given a banner to those who fear You, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” Psalm 60:4 Beneath the Southern Cross By Mike Scruggs The Confederate Battle Flag, sometimes called the Southern Cross, is held in disfavor by many who are unfamiliar with its origin and true symbolism. Many have been…
Historian Kevin M. Levin’s recently published book Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth deftly examines the complicated history of the role of enslaved African Americans both on the battlefield during the conflict, and in the fight over the memory of the war and it’s causes and consequences.
The striking visual has pervaded our national imagination: The first rays of a new day reveal the symbol of a nation — young but strong — standing defiant in the face of our foes. But just what did that flag, that for and those defenders endure?
In May of 1765, the news of the impending Stamp Act reached Boston. Starting November 1, 1765, all printed documents would be required by law to carry a stamp. Over the course of the summer of 1765, colonists grew increasingly agitated with the idea of the Stamp Act. On August 14, tensions finally reached a boiling point.
In a campaign that rivals any current presidential election for insults and rancor, John Adams defeated Thomas Jefferson in the 1796 election, a race that changed American politics forever.
One of the earliest and most jaw-droppingly ambitious plans to secure the city for the British came from the mind of Dr. John Connolly. [1] Word of his “plot” spread widely across the colonies in 1775 and came to symbolize the lengths to which Loyalists were willing to go to foil the American Revolution.
On one occasion Gen. Thomas J. Jackson was appointed one of the collectors of the Bible Society. When he returned his list it was discovered that, at the end, copied by the clerk of session, was a considerable number of names written in pencil, to each of which a very small amount was attached.
“[R]ace prejudice seems stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists, and nowhere is it more intolerant than in those states where slavery was never known.” –Alexis De Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” In some Northern states, after emancipation, blacks were legally allowed to vote, marry whites, file lawsuits,…
Though this battlefield has been lost to time, with effort, lingering traces of the ultimate Confederate cavalier's last battle can still be found hidden in the Richmond suburbs.
The origins and founding of the Sons of Liberty is unclear, but history records the earliest known references to the organization to 1765 in the thriving colonial port cities of Boston and New York.
