April 1994

Alone among all American battlefields, the scene of the Civil War’s costliest encounter is patrolled by government-licensed historians who keep alive for visitors the memory of what happened there.

Americans invented the grand hotel in the 1830s, and, during the next century, brought it to a zenith of democratic luxury that makes a visit to the surviving examples the most agreeable of historic pilgrimages.

A canoe trip along a river not far from industrial America reveals that the footprints of human history have been all but covered over by what looks like a primeval paradise.

The strange saga of a town that bragged, burned, and bullied itself into existence, and then became one of the most civilized places on Earth.