Tag: American Civil War

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“A splendid little war” was how Secretary of State John Hay described the Spanish-American War of 1898. Since Hay had served in Abraham Lincoln’s administration, he had had a lot of experience with more jaundiced wars like the one in the 1860s. The Spanish-American War was little, and its splendor depended upon where you were when it occurred. In DC’s clubrooms and in Congress, it was quite alluring, and was to most of the country. But if you were on the front line taking rounds from Spanish Mausers or suffering agony from malaria or dysentery — which a good part of the army was — it was not so splendid. (more…)

3,063 words

Any understanding of this nation has to be based, and I mean really based, on an understanding of the Civil War. I believe that firmly. It defined us. The Revolution did what it did. Our involvement in European wars, beginning with the First World War, did what it did. But the Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things. And it is very necessary, if you are going to understand the American character in the twentieth century, to learn about this enormous catastrophe of the mid-nineteenth century. It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads. — Shelby Foote (more…)

Thomas Nelson Page

4,261 words

What was life like in the antebellum South? Obviously it’s going to be a matter of perspective. Thomas Nelson Page provided one such viewpoint, the type we seldom hear about lately. He was a lawyer in his early career and a diplomat later, but is best known as a writer.

Aside from several novels, he published a non-fiction account of the Old South as he remembered it during his boyhood. This was Social Life in Old Virginia Before the War (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897). It’s a quick read, providing a glimpse into a bygone time. (more…)

Pickett’s Charge

9,630 words

Part 3 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here)

Part 2: Which Way, White Man?

Now that we have both established the reality of White Genocide and explored some of the pivotal events that led us to this point, we must ask: Which way, white man? (more…)

7,207 words

Part 2 of 3 (Part 1 here)

The Great Replacement

White genocide is well underway on another front — less immediately brutal, perhaps, but ultimately no less violent than the anti-white hate crimes we’ve just discussed — and that is the Great Replacement. (more…)

Hinton Rowan Helper

2,272 words

Hinton Rowan Helper was a curious and fascinating figure from nineteenth-century American history. Although mostly forgotten today, he was one of the most important and discussed men in the nation during the lead-up to the Civil War. As an unswerving race realist and white patriot at a time when whites were by far the dominant racial group in North America, he was (and probably still is) ahead of his time. (more…)

Battle of the ironclads, the Merrimack vs. the Monitor

4,699 words

Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

II. Out of Space: Fever

The thickened present manifested also in both a more expansive and a more constricted space during Gothic Science Fiction wars. (more…)

Grahame Baker-Smith’s 2017 Folio illustration for War of the Worlds.

3,882 words

Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)

Introduction

It was perhaps the most famous description of a (space) alien in English literature. The narrator felt an “utter terror [grip] him” as a thing from a nightmare emerged slowly, slowly from the pit that its smoking spacecraft had cratered in the Earth. As its body “bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.” A pair of huge, fathomless dark eyes regarded him intensely, “steadfastly. (more…)

Laura Ingalls Wilder

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I recently visited De Smet, South Dakota. It’s a small town east of central South Dakota named for a black-robed Christian missionary to the Indians. There are many such towns across the North American prairie; what makes this one special is that it is the town where Laura Ingalls Wilder launched her teaching career at the age of 16. Wilder went on to immortalize De Smet, South Dakota, and her family in a series of semi-fictionalized books. (more…)

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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)

There is a wonderful Ridley Scott film from 1977 called The Duellists, based on a Joseph Conrad short story, “The Duel.” It follows the exploits of two hussars in Napoleon’s Grande Armée as they traveled from 1800 Strasbourg, to 1812 Russia, and back again to France after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo. Were their enemies the Prussians, or the Russians, or the British? No, their true enemies were one another — (more…)

1,677 words

Barbara F. Walter
How Civil Wars Start: and How to Stop Them
New York: Random House, 2022

Barbara F. Walter is a Professor of Political Science at the School of Global Policy and Strategy as well as an Adjunct Professor at UC San Diego. She is also an expert in civil wars and how they start. In her recently-published book, How Civil Wars Start, she makes the case that the United States is headed towards civil war. (more…)

5,813 words

About a week ago a young black employee brought back news from the ghetto (colored folks are now the only reliable and honest sources left when it comes to these sorts of adventures). Earlier that afternoon, “authorities” had placed her high school on lock-down. A student had marched through the front doors with a gun and then began shooting up the place. Only notoriously bad black marksmanship prevented the school from becoming an abattoir. He then turned and fled, hiding somewhere inside the building (supposedly). (more…)