Here is the Confederate flag, that hot-button epicenter of controversy, displayed with no glamour or judgment: It’s a history museum, after all, and a good one if you’re interested in the Civil War. Or architecture: The unusual, circa-1891 pressed-brick Romanesque building is a stunner inside and out. Among thousands of relics (the second-largest collection in the U.S.) are weapons, uniforms, portraits, and the personal effects of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Of note: an elegant piano, saved from a fine Mississippi home pre-razing, that was carried into a trench mid-battle (for safekeeping!), where it was protected—and played—as cannonballs flew. Also: a great seal of the (short-lived) Confederate States of America, circa 1862; and an Alabama Legion battle flag with 83 painstakingly mended bullet holes.