Confederate officer, John Robery Baylor from the Civil War time period

A Complicated Man: John Baylor’s Letters to His Family

How could John Baylor have done such terrible thing and simultaneously be so effusively affectionate in his letters home?
Close-up of a voting machine lever

The Early American Origins of Political Terms

What does stump speech and pork barrel mean? A short lexicon of American political terms.
The Organ Mountains in New Mexico

Reading the Landscape

For the past two months, I have been on a researching road trip through the West and Southwest—Colorado, ...
Older and worn illustration of Mesilla, New Mexico

Visualizing History

Nineteenth-century visual images, then, had power to move people to action, to convert ideas into policy.
Low angle view of government buidling

The Origins of the Secret Service

Where did the Secret Service come from?
Excerpt of letter from Alexander Murdock detailing the geography of the Battle of Gettysburg

Finding Your Place in Letters

For scholars of American history, letter-writing makes historical research possible.
A map of Kansas from 1862 showing boundary lines as recorded by O.B. Gunn and D.T. Mitchell.

Finding Your Place by Looking at Maps

American maps in the early 19th century.
Card catalogue drawers

Adventures in Historical Research

Megan Kate Nelson, a historian of Civil War and the American Southwest, is behind the (Un)Catalogued Column for JSTOR Daily.
Empty Headstones

Green Burial and the North-South Divide

Embalming practices were first introduced in the US during the Civil War to preserve bodies for transportation.