On this Valentine’s Day, we remember the eloquent words of Major Sullivan Ballou whose last letter was written to his wife leading up to the battle at First Bull Run and found on his dead body after the battle. Sullivan Ballou was a prosperous attorney at...
The festive period embodies a time for togetherness and absolution, where we graciously welcome loved ones, no matter the distance they have traveled or any past grievances we might harbor. What truly matters is our shared kinship. In the December 31, 1864, issue of...
Thomas Nast created “Christmas Eve” for Harper’s Weekly in which he portrayed a wife separated from her soldier husband on Christmas Eve 1862. The sketch shows a family split apart by the Civil War. It is also one of the earliest images of Santa, in a...
The following woodcut by Winslow Homer depicts the inaugural celebration of Thanksgiving as an official national holiday in the aftermath of the Civil War. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving as a nationally recognized holiday, marking this...