Memory Union & Empire

Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835-1915) was the grandson of President John Quincy Adams and brother to the historians Henry Adams and Brooks Adams. Although born to privilege and wealth, he volunteered for service in 1861 and ended the war as a Colonel. Afterwards, he found success as the CEO of the Union Pacific Railroad and a significant American historian.

Here are collected, for the first time, essays and lectures by Charles Francis Adams, Jr. on the Civil War, war-related historiography, and his reservations about the American embrace of empire in 1898. Works in this collection include:

Lee at Appomattox

The Constitutional Ethics of Secession

'Tis Sixty Years Hence

Lee's Centennial

"War is Hell"

Lincoln's Offer to Garibaldi

Some Phases of the Civil War

An Undeveloped Function

"The Solid South" and the Afro-American Race Problem

"Shall Cromwell Have a Statue?"

The Confederacy and the Transvaal: A People's Obligation to Robert E. Lee

The Monroe Doctrine and Mommsen's Law

The Civil War Pension Lack-of-System

The Crisis of Foreign Intervention in the War of Secession

What Mr. Cleveland Stands For

Mr. Cleveland's Task

"Imperialism" & "The Tracks of Our Forefathers"

The Panama Canal Zone: An Epochal Event in Sanitation

The Trent Affair

A National Change of Heart

A Plea for Military History

The Sifted Grain and the Grain Sifters

Reflex Light From Africa

The Lessons of the Butler Canvass

Reform in City Government

To the Honorable Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, Regarding the Philippines

The Doctrine of Equality and the Race Problem