'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Back in the mists of time when the White House press corps was much smaller and far less pompous, President Lyndon Johnson often called a small pool of regulars into the Cabinet Room to casually plant some off-the-record point he wanted made without being quoted. The point often came only after some lengthy, and usually earthy, LBJ yarn.
Lots of people have "Ed Koch stories" – like when he was asked to explain how a former rival was defeated for re-election, even managing to lose in her home precinct. “Her neighbors know her!” he answered with the characteristic Koch shrug.
If Ulysses Grant was the prototypical Dwight Eisenhower, and if William T. Sherman foreshadowed Omar Bradley, then it is not too much of a stretch to call Philip Sheridan the George Patton of the Union armies of the Civil War -- minus the ego-driven tantrums.
Who knew Abraham Lincoln could play the violin and accordion? In Paula Vogel's warm, non-saccharine vision, the Lincoln character pitches in to do that and more in her sprightly, intellectual musical play, "A Civil War Christmas."
Letters and diaries from those who lived through the Civil War offer a new glimpse at the arguments that split the nation 150 years ago and some of the festering debates that survive today.
With his new film about the 16th president in theaters, two-time Academy Award winning director Steven Spielberg was to make the keynote address during ceremonies that celebrate the 149th anniversary of "The Gettysburg Address."
Two-time Academy Award winning director Steven Spielberg expressed a sense of humility Monday as he delivered the keynote address during ceremonies to mark the 149th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address."
"The Outlaw Josey Wales," "Gods and Generals" and "Birth of a Nation" are just some of the films highlighting the conflict between the Union and Confederacy.
The Civil War Battle of Antietam was so big, they’re re-enacting it twice. And nearly 8,000 re-enactors had to make a choice: Strictly regimented realism or bombastic spectacle?
The military history of Japan's samurai is book-ended not by violence, but by diplomacy and civil service. "Samurai: The Warrior Transformed," at National Geographic explores the nonmilitary roles of the samurai throughout Japan's history.
Robert Todd Lincoln was the oldest of President Abraham Lincoln's four sons and the only one to live to maturity. In contrast to his self-educated father, he graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and then Harvard. After the Civil War, he became one of the most prominent lawyers in Chicago, and by virtue of his name became a factor in Republican politics.
Some publishers promise readers through exaggerated book titles more than the authors intend. This can lead to cases of buyer's remorse. Happily, it is not the case with "Victors in Blue," which, despite its faintly misleading subtitle, is still a valuable addition to anyone's Civil War library and a treat to read.
The sword Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee had at his side when he surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is returning to Appomattox as the centerpiece of a new museum examining the post-Civil War struggle to heal the nation.
It's tough to beat Paul Newman directing John Malkovich through a script by Tennessee Williams. But someone — or rather, something — did: time.
He believed his greater allegiance was to his native Virginia, as he wrote to a friend about resigning his U.S. Army commission.
"Sympathizing with you in the troubles that are pressing so heavily upon our beloved country & entirely agreeing with you in your notions of allegiance, I have been unable to make up my mind to raise my hand against my native state, my relatives, my children & my home," he wrote in 1861. "I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army."
