By the time John Brown hung from the gallows for his crimes at Harper's Ferry, Northern abolitionists had made him a "holy martyr" in their campaign against Southern slave owners. This Northern hatred for Southerners long predated their objections to slavery. They were convinced...
In this riveting, character-driven history, one of our most respected historians traces the diseases in the public mind--the distortions of reality--that destroyed George Washington's vision of a united America and inflicted the tragedy that still divide's the nation's soul.