Award-winning Civil War historian Stephen Oates dies at 85

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) — Stephen Oates has died after a life that saw him become an award-winning Civil War historian who wrote biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Clara Barton, William Faulkner and others. The University of Massachusetts Amherst says Oates died Friday at his Amherst home at age 85. Oates received the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights book award in 1983. The Civil War Round Table of Chicago awarded him the Nevins Freeman Award for Civil War scholarship and biography. He was also an key consultant in Ken Burns’ 1990 documentary series “The Civil War.” He earned degrees from the University of Texas.