, ranger at Petersburg National battlefield, where we first met as park rangers many, many years ago. He is worked in manassas, vicksburg, and gettysburg. He will tackle the elephant in the room about gettysburg versus vicksburg, which one of these two battles he considers being a native mississippian and having worked at both parks, which he considers to be the biggest turning point. Gettysburg or vicksburg . I will let matt get up here and explain. Matt atkinson. [applause] matt thats what it is. I understand you all had a row last night about something. Right there, right . The most important battle, a top the top 10 battles in the american civil war, and gettysburg was left off. Can you believe that . I want to tell you a quick story. I was invited down to a richmond roundtable. We were at the willow oaks country club. We had virginia ham. That is the only time they go out there. Anyway, i was having a great time. I was in richmond and the man who did the top 10 last night lives th
Cspan why wouldnt the government at that time have protections for him . Guest why wouldnt the government have a pension. There were for pensions for nobody else and not a penchant for the present in effect he had very little money. He had to borrow money quite secretly which dean acheson cosigned to pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown and it doesnt mean he didnt have any money. He did have money but he needed cash to cover all the expenses coming out of the white house. When he got home in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his autobiography, his memoirs which no other president had ever done except for herbert hoover. Hoovers time in office was much briefer than was trumans presidency and covered far more tumultuous history so to undertake the 2volume memoir was a very major ambitious task and then he build his library. There had been a previous president ial library, Franklin Roosevelt library at hyde park established after roosevelt had d
Know before you go. A title that just did not sing for some reason. [laughter] i want to thank our longsuffering panelists for bearing with me as i arrived at a workable concept and title. I didave a clear idea have a clear idea what i wanted the symposium to be. A blend of wellknown beakers. 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 2020. Sing the year 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. The davis has been one of 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. Of four award
I did have a clear idea of 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 first civil war book, a biography of John C Breckenridge he wrote 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
Forum established an annual book prize recently named in honor of our distinguished chairman with cash award of 1,000 to honor outstanding scholarship on the life and career of our nations 16th president. Published the year preceding the of this award. Previous winners of the book prize include sidney blumenthal, james oakes, ted widmer and. Roger lowenstein. On behalf of my colleagues on the book prize jury, michele crowe, kristen mcwherter and daniel weinberg, it my honor and pleasure to announce the 2023 howard holter or lincoln book prize winner edward acorn for his the lincoln miracle inside the Republican Convention, the changed history. Not yet. Acorn presents a brilliantly written, riveting account of the 1860 Republican Convention that was held in chicago during summer of that year. He recounts in comprehensive how Abraham Lincoln the darkest, dark, stunned the political pundits of the time by defeating William Seward of new york. Considered by most observers as overwhelming f