For the past six years, I’ve asked myself, “Why would someone leave a nice state like Iowa and serve the Confederacy?” Seeking insights, I read James M. McPherson’s masterful book,…
Many Americans can picture the “devoted patriot” Edwin Stanton, close to Lincoln’s bedside as the president lay dying. After Lincoln breathed his last, a stoic Stanton reportedly said, “Now he…
Jefferson Davis was a lifelong friend of George Wallace Jones, one of Iowa’s first U.S. Senators (and father of two Confederates from Iowa). Even more than that, Jefferson Davis read…
Historical research and scholarship remind me of putting up fence posts the old-fashioned way. Gripping a post-hole-digger, a person presses down, making it bite into the soil. Repeated turns strain…