[indistinct conversation] peter if you could take your seats. All right, i am pete carmichael, a member of the History Department at the gettysburg college. It is my pleasure to welcome t. J. Stiles to cwi. He is an awardwinning author based out of berkeley, california. He is a native out of minnesota, a graduate of Carleton College who went on to do his graduate work in european history at columbia. He spent some time at Oxford University press. He worked with gabor. Many volumes that gabor put in together, those speeches were delivered right here. T. J. Had a little bit of time yesterday to talk about his work and talk about the craft of writing, and the conversation reminded me of the fact that a there is professional academic writing and then there is popular writing. I think the day has come that we can move away from that, and t. J. Stiles has worked to testify to the fact that you can write engaging biography with ideas, with argument, with analysis, and above all else, original
Prof. Hess thank you for that generous introduction. I was thinking about it this morning, what made me to this book . Whenever you go to a civil war roundtable and mention the name Braxton Bragg, there is laughter coming up the audience because in some ways, it is almost a joke in some ways. In other ways, as pete says, a cheap joke. And also the question this morning as someone asked of holeck theragg or most divided person of the civil war . And never dawned on me to say the most hated men of the civil war, but maybe i should have said that . Let me start out with a story, and i know many of you know this story. I overheard at least two people this morning telling this story to somebody else, but they did not know i was sitting next to them. Grant memoirs, ulysses as enlisted a story. Even though grant himself admitted he did not know if it was true or not, but he said, it is kind of emblematic. The story is before the civil war, Braxton Bragg in the u. S. Army commanded a company h
Have accumulated and theyve led to this really distorted view of both men. But today well be talking about Braxton Bragg. Earl has written a fantastic biography of Braxton Bragg, i believe we have kolpi copies of volume as well. Earls going to speak to us today about a topic. Im pleased to see were not going to hear crickets here because the topic is Braxton Bragg who is the butt of all jokes and of course civil war historians. Not a particularly humorous crew. It is my pleasure to welcome earl hess. [ applause ] thank you very much. Thank you, pete, very much, for that generous introduction. Thinking about it this morning, what made me do this book, and i think it really is what pete mentioned. That whenever you go to a civil war roundtable and mention the name Braxton Bragg, theres a titter of laughter coming up from the audience. Because he in some ways is kind of almost a joke. In some ways. In other ways, as pete says, a cheap joke. And also the question this morning that someone
Have accumulated and theyve led to this really distorted view of both men. But today well be talking about Braxton Bragg. Earl has written a fantastic biography of Braxton Bragg, i believe we have kolpi copies of volume as well. Earls going to speak to us today about a topic. Im pleased to see were not going to hear crickets here because the topic is Braxton Bragg who is the butt of all jokes and of course civil war historians. Not a particularly humorous crew. It is my pleasure to welcome earl hess. [ applause ] thank you very much. Thank you, pete, very much, for that generous introduction. Thinking about it this morning, what made me do this book, and i think it really is what pete mentioned. That whenever you go to a civil war roundtable and mention the name Braxton Bragg, theres a titter of laughter coming up from the audience. Because he in some ways is kind of almost a joke. In some ways. In other ways, as pete says, a cheap joke. And also the question this morning that someone
Have accumulated and theyve led to this really distorted view of both men. But today well be talking about Braxton Bragg. Earl has written a fantastic biography of Braxton Bragg, i believe we have kolpi copies of volume as well. Earls going to speak to us today about a topic. Im pleased to see were not going to hear crickets here because the topic is Braxton Bragg who is the butt of all jokes and of course civil war historians. Not a particularly humorous crew. It is my pleasure to welcome earl hess. [ applause ] thank you very much. Thank you, pete, very much, for that generous introduction. Thinking about it this morning, what made me do this book, and i think it really is what pete mentioned. That whenever you go to a civil war roundtable and mention the name Braxton Bragg, theres a titter of laughter coming up from the audience. Because he in some ways is kind of almost a joke. In some ways. In other ways, as pete says, a cheap joke. And also the question this morning that someone