History: The Five Meetings

Each session will take place in the La Jeunesse Room inside the Old Ranch building starting at 7:00 PM.  The Old Ranch is next the campus post office and across from Frazar Memorial Library.  Parking is free in the large lot across from the Library after 4:00 PM.  Dr. Smith will give a brief presentation prior to each discussion.  Please complete the readings prior to attending.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - Imagining War

   Read the novel March by Geraldine Brooks, 2005

           
Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - Choosing Sides

   Read selections from the anthology, America's War: Talking About the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries, Edited by Edward L. Ayers

• Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" [1852];
• Henry David Thoreau, "A Plea for Captain John Brown" [1859];
• Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address [March 4, 1861];
• Alexander H. Stephens, "Cornerstone" speech [March 21, 1861];
• Robert Montague, Secessionist speech at Virginia secession convention [April 1-2, 1861];
• Chapman Stuart, Unionist speech at Virginia secession convention [April 5, 1861];
• Elizabeth Brown Pryor, excerpt from Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through his Private Letters[2007];
• Mark Twain, "The Private History of a Campaign That Failed" [1885]; and
• Sarah Morgan, excerpt from The Diary of a Southern Woman [May 9, May 17, 1862].

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - Making Sense of Shiloh

   Read selections from the anthology, America's War: Talking About the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries, Edited by Edward L. Ayers

• Ambrose Bierce, "What I Saw of Shiloh" [1881];
• Ulysses Grant, excerpt from the Memoirs[1885];
• Shelby Foote, excerpt from Shiloh[1952];
• Bobbie Ann Mason, "Shiloh" [1982]; and
• General Braxton Bragg, speech to the Army of the Mississippi [May 3, 1862].

Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - The Shape of War

   Read Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, by James McPherson

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - War and Freedom

   Read selections from the anthology, America's War: Talking About the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries, Edited by Edward L. Ayers

• Abraham Lincoln, address on colonization [1862];
• John M. Washington, "Memorys [sic] of the Past" [1873];
• Frederick Douglass, "Men of Color, To Arms!" [March 1863];
• Abraham Lincoln, letters to James C. Conkling [1863] and Albert G. Hodges [1864];
• Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address [1863];
• James S. Brisbin, report on U.S. Colored Cavalry in Virginia [Oct. 2, 1864];
• Colored Citizens of Nashville, Tennessee, Petition to the Union Convention of Tennessee Assembled in the Capitol at Nashville [January 9, 1865];
• Margaret Walker, excerpt from Jubilee[1966];
• Leon Litwack, excerpt from Been in the Storm So Long[1979]; and
• Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, 1865.