Echoes of Civil War and Hidden Histories in the South — Nathaniel Philbrick — Retracing Washington's Southern route reveals prophetic historical connections to the future American Civil War , as many mansions and estates Washington visited were subsequently destroyed during General Sherman's March through the South . Philbrick documents Washington's diplomatically fraught and contradictory interactions with the Catawba Indians , wherein Washington assured them of federal protection while simultaneously waging military campaigns against tribes in Ohio , exposing the fundamental dishonesty of federal Indian policy. Philbrick explores Old Salem , where the Moravian search for religious freedom coexisted with a hidden, systematically suppressed history of slavery within Moravian communities. Philbrick emphasizes the tangible endurance of history, describing the discovery of physical remnants—bricks, chains, abandoned ferry sites—that materially connect contemporary observers to Washington's eighteenth-century journey. 1889
