[laughter] i want to thank our longsuffering panelists for bearing with me as i arrived at a workable concept and title. I do have a clear idea i did have a clear idea what i wanted the symposium to be. A blend of wellknown speakers. Blended with excellent lesserknown speakers who you should want to know well and will want to know well and have them speak about their Exciting New Research and their contributions to civil war scholarship. I stumbled on a title and a gimmick using the year 2020. As a way of providing hindsight and insight into the study of the civil war. With that concept in mind, i want to introduce our first speaker who was an obvious choice to lead off this conference. Jack davis has been one of the most prominent and accomplished civil war scholars for several generations. He started as a boy, i think. If i recall correctly, his were civil war book, a biography of John C Breckenridge he rode as a college student. He won the first of four awards. You will find a partial list of titles of his civil war books in your program. Jack was also a longtime editor of civil war times illustrated. And editor of the wildly popular the images of war and touched by fire series. His breadandbutter is the civil war but he has also written lively and important works about other aspects of american history. Including the alamo, the texas republic. If youre not familiar with those titles you will want to be. We appreciate jack allowing us to drag him back into the civil war today to speak on 50 shades of blue and gray, causes and responsibilities of the civil war. Ladies and gentlemen, jack davis. [applause] jack davis john and i share the same quandary over titling apparently. I like the blue and gray bucket list. I thought 50 shades of blue and grey would gray might play on the title of another book and might result in a wildly enthusiastic audience spilling out into the streets of richmond. And i would just be filling in the center where he tried to get you to go. Would you all please move to this row in the front . It is delightful to be back here. I have always had high regard for the American Civil War museum and its predecessor. For coming here. In speaking to audiences like this. I also sympathize with john with being required to