If Mark Twain were alive today, he'd probably be burning up the Internet on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr, and LinkedIn. That's because Twain was quite the self-promoter and a lover of new technology, especially communications technology. I recently...
Sojourner Truth was once told that if she dared to preach, the building where she spoke would be burned. The famous abolitionist responded, "Then I will speak to the ashes." You gotta love it. This past weekend, actress Jennifer Goran and I encountered Sojourner Truth...
In the very early hours of May 13, 1862, a slave named Robert Smalls decided to make his move. Smalls had worked his way up to becoming a wheelman--a pilot--and the Confederates used him to steer the CSS Planter, an armed Rebel military transport during the Civil War....
A wrong turn triggered World War I. To find out how, check out a recent story that I wrote for the University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. A Wrong Turn in History
One hundred and fifty years ago this week, on February 17, 1864, a Confederate submarine made the first successful attack in history, sinking the USS Housatonic while trying to break the Federal blockade during the Civil War. Like a bee inserting its stinger and then...
Whenever I came off the field after a day playing vintage baseball, my hands were often stinging something fierce. That's because we played by 1860 rules, which meant NO GLOVES. And since I played third base for the Danville Voles, I sometimes had to field a sharp...
Edna Greene Medford became a historian at a time when the legacy of Abraham Lincoln had lost some of its luster in the African American community. So she said she never had any plans to specialize on Lincoln. But Professor Medford can credit C-SPAN for changing those...
My two worlds converged recently. In my world as a writer for the University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, I recently did a story about the "Myth of Black Confederates"--a subject that directly applied to my other world as a writer of historical...
I am thrilled to announce that a New York film and television company has purchased the screenplay of The Disappearing Man, with the goal of bringing Henry "Box" Brown's story to the screen. Many people have told me that my novels read like movies, so it is only...
Timothy Webster, the most famous spy during the first year of the Civil War, first encountered the Lincoln League when he was taken to a secluded hideout in the woods. He was taken there by the African American spy, John Scobell--the hero of my new novel, The Lincoln...