On Memorial Day, we pause in remembrance of those who have died in service to their beloved country in the U.S. military. The observance was established in the aftermath of the Civil War. Originally referred to as “Decoration Day,” it became a tradition to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers with brightly colored and scented flowers.
Pope Leo XIV addressed the country's civil war-scarred past that he said has brought enmity and division, squandered resources and poverty. Today, there is a need to look to the future with hope and to build that hope.
"When we were little, we played 'name the caliber of this bomb.' It sounds odd, but when you grow up in a war-torn zone, those are your games that you play as a kid."
The Vowell-Smith House, built in 1854, is a 14,000 square-foot estate featuring 12-and-a-half-foot high ceilings, original pine floors, and 13 fireplaces, making it a unique historical property.
Truth be told, Reconstruction is not a fancy way of saying the Civil War. The term refers to the period after the Civil War, in which the former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union and had to adhere to the Constitution and federal statutes, particularly the newly-ratified 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, which abolished slavery, granted citizenship and the attendant rights to all persons born in the U.S. (including former slaves), and prohibited denial of voting rights based on race, respectively.
At first sight, Winslow Homer's " The Brush Harrow," which depicts two young boys, a horse, and a harrow against an arid landscape, evokes a feeling of somber isolation - but it's hard to pinpoint why. During a talk by curator Horace D. Ballard at the Harvard Art Museums on Jan. 29, visitors learned that Homer painted the scene in 1865, as the Civil War was ending, making the emotional underpinnings of the work clearer.
In 1863, during the Civil War, the First South Carolina Volunteers, an all-Black Union regiment composed of many who escaped from slavery, was mustered into federal service at Beaufort, South Carolina. In 1945, Pvt. Eddie Slovik, 24, became the first U.S. soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion as he was shot by an American firing squad in France.
It is a darkly dystopian vision of Britain's future, in which tens of thousands die in a bitter civil war in just a few years time. Yet such forecasts are no longer limited to niche corners of the internet or the X feed of Elon Musk, condemned by Downing Street for claiming that war in Britain was inevitable after the post-Southport rioting.
To characterize the Mexican-American War as only a training ground for the officers who would later serve on both sides in the Civil War is a simplification and a disservice to all who fought between 1846 and 1848, but, at the same time, there is truth to the label. The Mexican-American War provided the theater in which many of the most famous Civil War generals learned the art of warfare firsthand, and they made use of those lessons later to great effect.
"The story is not lace and doilies and sitting comfortably by the fire," Gunderson said. "They're at war, their father might not come home and there's a plague next door that's killing the community. These are really high stakes, and these girls are growing up in this moment of American division and crisis, the real stress-testing of humanity all around them."
