Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command

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Vicksburg: Grant's Campaign That Broke the Confederacy

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On to Petersburg: Grant and Lee, June 4-15, 1864

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The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood's First Effort to Save Atlanta

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Controversies and Commanders: Dispatches from the Army of the Potomac

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Chancellorsville

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Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam

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"Lee is Trapped, and Must be Taken": Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg: July 4 - 14, 1863

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Antietam: Military Accounts of the Bloodiest Battle in American History

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To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign

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The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and the Fate of the Confederacy

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Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam

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Never Call Retreat

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Gettysburg

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The Battle of Gettysburg

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Gettysburg Voices from the Front

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Their Last Full Measure: The Final Days of the Civil War

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Surrender at Appomattox: First-hand Accounts of Robert E. Lee's Surrender to Ulysses S. Grant

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Conquered: Why the Army of Tennessee Failed

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The Dawn's Early Light

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Tullahoma: The Forgotten Campaign that Changed the Civil War, June 23 - July 4, 1863

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The Iron Brigade: The History of the Famous Union Army Brigade During the Civil War

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The Cornfield: Antietam's Bloody Turning Point

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The Quartermaster: Montgomery C. Meigs, Lincoln's General, Master Builder of the Union Army

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Reminiscences of a Rebel: The True Adventures of a Confederate Soldier

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Lincoln and His Admirals

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Chancellorsville and Gettysburg

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Shiloh: A Novel

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The Stonewall Brigade and Hood’s Brigade: The History of the Most Famous Units in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War

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NPR American Chronicles: The Civil War

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Marshall and His Generals: U.S. Army Commanders in World War II

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1776

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American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

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The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free

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Imminent: Inside the Pentagon’s Hunt for UFOs

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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

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American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History

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Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win

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SEAL of God

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The Art of Clear Thinking: A Stealth Fighter Pilot's Timeless Rules for Making Tough Decisions

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Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Female Spy—and the Sister She Betrayed

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The Wives: A Memoir

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Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson

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Scars and Stripes: An Unapologetically American Story of Fighting the Taliban, UFC Warriors, and Myself

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The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

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The Killing School: Inside the World's Deadliest Sniper Program

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The Giant Killer: The incredible true story a 4' 9" 97lb man who achieved the impossible by becoming a Green Beret Captain and war hero.

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Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance

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Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam

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Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury

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Healing Wounds: A Vietnam War Combat Nurse's 10-Year Fight to Win Women a Place of Honor in Washington, D.C.

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Summary: Can't Hurt Me - Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins

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The Way Forward: Master Life's Toughest Battles and Create Your Lasting Legacy

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The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior

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The Unit: My Life Fighting Terrorists as One of America's Most Secret Military Operatives

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Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan

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Things I'll Never Forget: Memories of a Marine in Viet Nam

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The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare

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Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious General

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Surf When You Can: Lessons in Life, Loyalty, and Leadership from a Maverick Navy Captain

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Lecture 19 - To Appomattox and Beyond: The End of the War and a Search for Meanings: Professor Blight uses Herman Melville's poem "On the Slain Collegians" to introduce the horrifying slaughter of 1864. The architect of the strategy that would eventually lead to Union victory, but at a staggering human cost, was Ulysses S. Grant, brought East to assume control of all Union armies in 1864. Professor Blight narrates the campaigns of 1864, including the Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, and the siege of Petersburg. While Robert E. Lee battled Grant to a stalemate in Virginia, however, William Tecumseh Sherman's Union forces took Atlanta before beginning their March to the Sea, destroying Confederate morale and fighting power from the inside. Professor Blight closes his lecture with a description of the first Memorial Day, celebrated by African Americans in Charleston, SC 1865. Transcript Lecture Page

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Lecture 15 - Lincoln, Leadership, and Race: Emancipation as Policy: Professor Blight follows Robert E. Lee's army north into Maryland during the summer of 1862, an invasion that culminated in the Battle of Antietam, fought in September of 1862. In the wake of Antietam, Abraham Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, a document that changed the meaning of the war forever. Professor Blight suggests some of the ways in which Americans have attempted to come to grips with the enigmatic Lincoln, and argues that, in the end, it may be Lincoln's capacity for change that was his most important characteristic. The lecture concludes with the story of John Washington, a Virginia slave whose concerted action suggests the central role American slaves played in securing their own freedom. Transcript Lecture Page

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Lecture 14 - Never Call Retreat: Military and Political Turning Points in 1863: Professor Blight lectures on the military history of the early part of the war. Beginning with events in the West, Blight describes the Union victories at Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, introduces Union General Ulysses S. Grant, and narrates the horrific battle of Shiloh, fought in April of 1862. Moving back East, the lecture describes the Union General George McClellan's abortive 1862 Peninsula campaign, which introduced the world to Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. The lecture concludes with Confederate General Robert E. Lee's decision to take the battle to the North. Transcript Lecture Page

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Flags of Our Fathers: One of the most iconic photographs of all time is the famous Joe Rosenthal photo of the raising of the American flag on Mount Suribachi in the southwest corner of Iwo Jima. In Flags of Our Fathers, director Clint Eastwood weaves together the story of...

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#89 FORTS HENRY & DONELSON (Part the First): In which we give the background to Ulysses S. Grant's February, 1862 campaign to capture Forts Henry & Donelson in northern Tennessee.

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Lecture 21 - Andrew Johnson and the Radicals: A Contest over the Meaning of Reconstruction: In this lecture, Professor Blight begins his engagement with Reconstruction. Reconstruction, Blight suggests, might best be understood as an extended referendum on the meaning of the Civil War. Even before the war's end, various constituencies in the North attempted to control the shape of the post-war Reconstruction of the South. In late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln offered his lenient "Ten Percent Plan." Six months later, Congressional Republicans concerned by Lincoln's charity rallied behind the more radical provisions of the Wade-Davis Bill. Despite their struggle for control over Reconstruction, Congressional Radicals and President Lincoln managed to work together on two vital pieces of Reconstruction legislation in the first months of 1865--the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery in the United States, and the Freedmen's Bureau bill. Transcript Lecture Page

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#68 "BATTLE OF THE HEMP BALES": In which we discuss the successful siege of Lexington by Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard in September, 1861.

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‘Robert E. Lee: A Life’, with Dr. Allen Guelzo

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Lecture 23 - Black Reconstruction in the South: The Freedpeople and the Economics of Land and Labor: Professor Blight begins this lecture in Washington, where the passage of the first Reconstruction Act by Congressional Republicans radically altered the direction of Reconstruction. The Act invalidated the reconstituted Southern legislatures, establishing five military districts in the South and insisting upon black suffrage as a condition to readmission. The eventful year 1868 saw the impeachment of one president (Andrew Johnson) and the election of another (Ulysses S. Grant). Meanwhile, southern African Americans struggle to reap the promises of freedom in the face of economic disempowerment and a committed campaign of white supremacist violence. Transcript Lecture Page

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Max Boot: The Road Not Taken: Author Max Boot returns to the Pritzker Military Museum & Library to talk about his book "The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam"

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#91 FORTS HENRY & DONELSON (Part the Third): In which we look at the Federal timberclads' dramatic raid up the Tennessee River, and Albert Sidney Johnston's controversial decision to reinforce- but not to fully commit to the defense of- Fort Donelson.

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Gallipoli: James and Sean discuss the 1981 Australian film Gallipoli, which tells the story of a group of Australian young men who are introduced to the horrors of war at the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli.

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128 Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History: Historians often portray the American Revolution as an orderly, if violent, event that moved from British colonists’ high-minded ideas about freedom to American independence from Great Britain and the ratification of the Constitution of 1787. But...

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#02 SLAVERY & POLITICS: In which we take a look back at American history to see how slavery, even from the colonial period, played a major role in shaping & defining the country's political landscape. 

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273 | Elliot Ackerman: Reckoning with America's End in Afghanistan: Elliot Ackerman, author of The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan and 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, returns to The Realignment near the first anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul to discuss how the war reshaped American society, the pivot to Great Power competition, and his service during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as a Marine/CIA officer.

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Lecture 26 - Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory: Having dealt with the role of violence and the Supreme Court in bringing about the end of Reconstruction in his last lecture, Professor Blight now turns to the role of national electoral politics, focusing in particular on the off-year Congressional election of 1874 and the Presidential election of 1876. 1874 saw the return of the Democrats to majority status in the Senate and the House of Representatives, as voters sick of corruption and hurt by the Panic of 1873 fled the Republicans in droves. According to many historians, the contested election of 1876, and the "Compromise of 1877," which followed it, marked the official end of Reconstruction. After an election tainted by fraud and violence, Republicans and Democrats brokered a deal by which Republican Rutherford B. Hayes took the White House in exchange for restoration of "home rule" for the South. Transcript Lecture Page

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#299 GETTYSBURG (Part the Third): In which we look at Robert E Lee's reasons for launching an offensive strike north into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863. 

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Lecture 24 - Retreat from Reconstruction: The Grant Era and Paths to "Southern Redemption": This lecture opens with a discussion of the myriad moments at which historians have declared an "end" to Reconstruction, before shifting to the myth and reality of "Carpetbag rule" in the Reconstruction South. Popularized by Lost Cause apologists and biased historians, this myth suggests that the southern governments of the Reconstruction era were dominated by unscrupulous and criminal Yankees who relied on the ignorant black vote to rob and despoil the innocent South. The reality, of course, diverges widely from this image. Among other accomplishments, the Radical state governments that came into existence after 1868 made important gains in African-American rights and public education. Professor Blight closes the lecture with the passage of the 15th Amendment, the waning radicalism of the Republican party after 1870, and the rise of white political terrorism across the South. Transcript Lecture

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#05 MEXICAN WAR (Part the First): In which we look at how tensions rose along the U.S.'s southern border, and then discuss how hostilities with Mexico commenced in April 1846.

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#66 WILSON'S CREEK (Part the First): In which we discuss the activities and maneuvering of both sides prior to the Battle of Wilson's Creek (August 10, 1861) in southwest Missouri.

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S2E2: Captain Marion Carl, USMC, F4F Wildcat pilot, Navy Cross at Midway and Guadalcanal, World War 2

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Episode 2: Day of Days (with John Orloff and Richard Loncraine)

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S2E6: 67th Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal

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Millard Fillmore: Teaching the obscure presidents: Should we teach the presidency of Millard Fillmore? What do we lose if we don't? Historians Jean Baker and James McPherson, along with Washington Post education reporter T. Rees Shapiro, tackle these questions in our 13th episode.

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Lecture 12 - "And the War Came," 1861: The Sumter Crisis, Comparative Strategies: After finishing with his survey of the manner in which historians have explained the coming of the Civil War, Professor Blight focuses on Fort Sumter. After months of political maneuvering, the Civil War began when Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, in the harbor outside Charleston, SC. The declaration of hostilities prompted four more states--Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas--to secede. Professor Blight closes the lecture with a brief discussion of some of the forces that motivated Americans--North and South--to go to war. Transcript Lecture Page

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Ep 2.2: 1st Lt William Lawley, USAAF, B-17 Flying Fortress pilot, 8th Air Force, World War 2

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Lincoln on Infrastructure: Known in history for his role in ending slavery and prosecuting the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln's most important issue in his time as an elected official was infrastructure. And in that, he was little different than his pioneer constituents. In this episode, we talk about Lincoln's roots, his arguments countering objections to improvement projects (that have relevance today), and how it shaped slavery and other political issues of his time.

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Best of - David McCullough, Stephen Ambrose and David Herbert Donald: Time Travelers: It is the rare writer who can make history so compelling, so alive, that people will flock to read it. David McCullough, who died last Sunday, was one of those writers. He was the author of two Pulitzer Prize-winning books: one about President Harry Truman and one about President John Adams. In honor of Mr. McCullough, we are reposting this episode from 2020 which featured him and two other great presidential historians: Stephen Ambrose and David Herbert Donald. They talk here about their subjects as if they had gone back in time and returned, breathless, to share the stories they'd heard. And each writer explains how he fell under the spell of history and made it his life's work.

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47: Bull Run, Trent Affair, the Merrimack, & Fort Donelson: The Early Days of the Civil War

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Daily News Brief for Wednesday, April 19th, 2023