There’s a fatigue that settles in—not in the bones, but in the soul. It’s the kind that comes from hearing history rewritten in real time, not out of malice but out of willful comfort. Today, standing in the museum, I listened to a woman declare with absolute certainty that the Civil War was not about slavery. She was passionate, assured, and wrong. I didn’t correct her. That’s not my role—not in that space, not with that dynamic. But her voice lingered. Not because it was unique, but because it wasn’t.
What struck me most wasn’t her ignorance, but her confidence. And it wasn’t anger I felt—it was sadness. Deep and abiding. Because she isn’t alone. Because I’ve heard it before and will again. Because in a country still fractured by the memory of that war, so many cling to sanitized myths. Because we have confused comfort with truth.
My mind drifted, as it often does, to Thomas Moran’s Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia. I first saw it years ago in Tulsa, and it’s lived rent-free in my mind ever since. The painting is a dense, moody depiction of the Virginia swamp—a tangle of moss and shadow, of foliage both beautiful and foreboding. In the foreground, a man carries a child across shallow water. Behind them, almost swallowed by the darkness, are slave hunters on horseback, their presence more felt than seen. It is a painting about pursuit, yes, but also about protection. About the dignity of love in the face of dehumanization.
In that moment today, I remembered something James Baldwin once said:
“People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them.”
That line echoes through Moran’s canvas and through our conversations about the past. We are still haunted by a war many people think they understand, but few truly confront.
The Civil War was about slavery. Not tariffs. Not trains. Not vague abstractions of states’ rights. The right in question—the one spelled out explicitly in every Confederate constitution—was the right to own other human beings. Mississippi declared, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.” Georgia called slavery “the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.” And Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, made it horrifyingly plain in his infamous “Cornerstone Speech” of 1861:
“The cornerstone [of the Confederacy] rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.”
That is not vague. That is not ambiguous. That is not revisionist interpretation. That is the historical record.
And yet, even today, standing in a museum dedicated to the war’s memory, people rewrite its meaning. It’s as if history must be stripped of its pain to be palatable. But pain was part of it. It was it.
Moran’s painting does not depict a battlefield, nor a general, nor a flag—it captures the human consequence. It shows what was being defended, and what was being fled. The Confederacy was not merely defending a way of life. It was defending an economy built on stolen labor and stolen bodies. Some leaders even advocated for reopening the transatlantic slave trade—long outlawed—as a way to bolster the South’s economic might. In their minds, freedom was a threat, not a right.
And so I stood there today, behind the desk, listening. Not responding. And when she spoke of a coming second Civil War, I wondered: does she know what the first one cost? Does she understand that history is not a plaything? That when we lie about the past, we prepare ourselves poorly for the future?
Historian David Blight reminds us that:
“History is not nostalgia. It is a battlefield, and we are all its combatants.”
But what happens when people arrive for battle without ever having learned what the last one was fought over?
As a teacher, a historian, and a seeker of truth, this kind of moment doesn’t enrage me anymore. It saddens me. Because it reveals how fragile truth can be in the face of repetition. Because I know how hard it is to unlearn myths passed down like heirlooms. Because I know the cost of forgetting.
Still, I believe in the quiet work. The long work. The honest work.
And so I return again to Moran’s swamp. To the father and the child. To the unseen path ahead and the threat behind. The water is murky. The way is hard. But they move forward. Because they must. Because love compels them.
Maybe that’s my role too—not to confront every falsehood, but to help guide others through the murk. To keep the record straight, even when no one’s listening. To love truth more than comfort.
In a time when so many seem poised to repeat the past, the real work may be to remember it fully, honestly, and with open eyes. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.