Slate receives a commission when you purchase items using the links on this page. Thank you for your support. Offering an updated analysis rather than significant archival finds, Varon’s narrative ...

A Fresh Look at Lee's "Old War Horse" In recent years the “Lost Cause" school of southern history, championed by William Pendleton, Jubal Early, and others, that worked diligently to blame James ...

Elizabeth R. Varon, a professor of American history at the University of Virginia, has written a handful of groundbreaking and prize-winning books about the American Civil War. I had previously ...

Prof. Varon (UVa) has an impressive body of work on the Civil War, including Appomattox: Victory, Defeat, and Freedom at the End of the Civil War, which received the 2014 NYMAS “Eugene Feit Award.” ...

Within the military, far and away the greatest influence of the lost cause of the Confederacy is in the Army: 10 major Army posts were named for Confederates, two Navy ships, and essentially nothing ...

The South’s most astute commander, he was an ardent defender of slavery, but his sudden Reconstruction conversion brought down fires of vengeance that burned James Longstreet’s reputation for a ...

A key subordinate to Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. James Longstreet was instrumental in the Confederate victory at the Battle of Chickamauga and active after the war in advocating for racial reconciliation ...

Lt. Gen. James Longstreet remains the Confederacy’s most controversial senior military leader. Born in 1821, the West Point graduate, like many of his future comrades in arms, served ably during the ...

This incisive biography from historian Varon (Armies of Deliverance) offers a fresh take on Confederate general James Longstreet (1821–1904), who was Robert E. Lee’s trusted “war-horse.” Rather than ...