I am reading "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, 2008, by Drew Gilpin Faust of Harvard. This is not a book review yet, I am only a quarter through the book. No, this is a comment on an on-going subject here on this board on how history is written, especially the Civil War, and usually how biased that history is. One chapter I just finished illustrates to me that very subject so well. The chapter was called "Killing" and was on the topic of the emotion of killing for the Civil War soldiers. One good part of this chapter was dedicated to the killing of black prisoners of war by Confederates, in fact several historical accounts of these events were covered in detail, but only the hint or suggestion that black Union soldiers may have been capable of the same acts. That "if" they did kill Confederate prisoners they were certainly justified to do so was the main idea. Not one account of known events was covered or suggested in relation to the killing of Confederate prisoners, only the Union prisoners. For the novice reader Ms. Faust gives an idea of impartiallity with her writing skills but for the educated it is very obvious how much she left out.

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David Upton