Civil War in four minutes.

We'll be watching this today!  

h/t American Catholic and  Never Enough Homework.

UPDATE.  Got more than four minutes?  Instead of maps and figures (as exciting as they can be) take a look at a primary source, found in this post from Ta-Nehisi Coates.  "Laura Spicer was sold away from her husband while they both were slaves.  After the war and emancipation, the two considered reconciling, but the husband had remarried.  Here is a letter to Laura from her first husband..."  

Read the discussion, too.  TNC's blog posts on slavery and the Civil War have, I hope, deeply affected how I homeschool about it.

Comments

[Darwin]

I ran into that letter once before in an old edition of the Teacing Company's set of American History lectures. Absolutely searing.

That's the second really interesting TNC post I've run into in as many weeks, I should start reading him. Since Douthat left, Megan McArdle had been the only Atlantic blogger I'd been reading.

[bearing]

Yes, TNC is definitely worth reading, especially on the history of slavery and the Civil War, which he comes at not as an expert but as an ordinary person grappling with it. Very good writing and great commenters. For some fun threads, I recommend searching for posts about haircuts.

Gasp! Erin reads a liberal blog!

I try always to have at least a short list of politically liberal blogs to read that are well-written, fair-minded, and have thoughtful, regular commenters -- I don't want to live in an echo chamber, and I think it's important to be in touch with the best writing on both sides of any issue. Not, as so many do, be in touch only with bad writing that you can pretend is the best writing by your opponents and thus feel superior about.