American History Too!

The fourth episode of American History Too! delves into the United States’ deadliest conflict to date – The American Civil War.  To help us with this mammoth task we bring on board University of Edinburgh lecturer, Dr David Silkenat.  David teaches a course here at Edinburgh on the American Civil War and, among his various publications, he has published a well-received, award-winning book entitled Moments of Despair: Suicide, Divorce, and Debt in Civil War Era North Carolina.  David guides us through how the Civil War legacy’s remains a contentious bone in the American South.  We then turn our attentions North and discuss the role of Copperheads (opponents of the war) in fomenting dissension – both rhetorical and violent – against the both the conflict and Abraham Lincoln.  In particular, David – a native New Yorker – offers us his take on the New York Draft Riots of July 1863 that ended with roughly 120 dead and 2,000 wounded in the nation’s biggest metropolis. In addition, we hear how the Bush Adminis