<br> <div class="guest_name"> <a href="https://history.virginia.edu/people/elizabeth-r-varon" target="_blank"> with Elizabeth Varon </a></div><div class="host_name"> <a href="https://history.virginia.edu/people/chris-gratien" target="_blank">hosted by Chris Gratien</a></div> <div class="hidden_synopsis"> | After the US Civil War, some leaders of the defeated Confederacy followed unusual trajectories, perhaps none more so than James Longstreet, who joined the Republican party to become a proponent of Southern Reconstruction and for a brief period, the Minister Resident to the Ottoman Empire. In this episode, we talk to Elizabeth Varon, author of a new biography of Longstreet, about the rebel-turned-diplomat&#39;s brief tenure in the Ottoman capital during the early years of Sultan Abdul Hamid II&#39;s reign, and we discuss what Longstreet&#39;s experiences reveal about America on the world stage in the shadow of the Civil War and Reconstruction. We also discuss Prof. Varon&#39;s personal connection to post-Ottoman Istanbul, as well as her new research about Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, who followed in Longstreet&#39;s footsteps some years later on a humanitarian mission to the Ottoman Armenians in Anatolia.    </div> <a href="https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2026/03/longstreet.html#more">« Click for More »</a>