About Civil War-Civil Rights
Jack Hurst is a former longtime print journalist who has written three Civil War books: Nathan Bedford Forrest: A Biography (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign That Decided the Civil War (Basic Books, 2007), and a second book about Ulysses S. Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest, Born To Battle, published in June 2012 by Basic Books. He also had a desk in the rear of the cityroom of the Nashville Tennessean and watched David Halberstam go about covering the desegregation movement in Nashville in 1960-61 and himself covered some of the civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham for the Tennessean in 1963. He owes profuse thanks to Jennifer Kelland Fagan, copy editor extraordinaire and computer guru,for indispensable aid in the design evolution of this blog. Her eye-catching website can be accessed at www.hydraislandgreece.com.
1861 Kentucky, arguably the Union’s most-needed state, and Tennessee, arguably the Confederacy’s, shared a 250-mile border across the heart of the central South. But their similarities were deceptive. The Bluegrass was more dependent on trade with Cincinnati and … Continue reading →
1861 Civil war, shriekingly threatened off and on for decades, was now real. To the joy of some Americans and the dismay of most, secessionists and unionists began to meet bloodily in small and scattered clashes while zealots of … Continue reading →
1861 Anxiety swiftly trumped legality. With critical border states remaining undeclared, both sides went after them with the zeal of self-preservation. Abraham Lincoln’s government had to have Maryland. Otherwise, facing disloyal Virginia across the Potomac River, the … Continue reading →
1861 The Civil War’s fabled “first shots” weren’t, exactly. History dates the conflict’s inception from those on April 12, 1861 against Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, South Carolina, but the designation is somewhat arbitrary. Nine days before, Confederates had fired on … Continue reading →
Civil War & Civil Rights 