Adam Goodheart on 1861

One out of every 25 American men died during the Civil War, and sometimes it seems the country is still fighting its battles. Kurt talks with Adam Goodheart, a historian and journalist, about how the mapmaker’s divide between red states and blue echoes the gray and blue of the Civil War. Has America forgotten the high cost of Civil War? Goodheart is the author of a new book about the war’s beginning, 1861, and an author of the blog Disunion.
  
  
  
  
  
Bonus Track: The War Between the BeardsWar wasn’t the only thing that broke out between the North and South – so too did men’s facial hair. Historian Adam Goodheart, who sports his own “spiffy goatee,” considers the growth of a bearded phenomenon.

embed_audio(
‘http://audio.wnyc.org/studioblog/studioblog040611_civil_war_beards.mp3’,
‘id1169052071477a4544e07-035c-41bb-b196-7907bd886cb6’,
400,
”,
”
, true);

Fort Sumter, beneath the Confederate flag and under their control, on April 14, 1861 (National Archive)