We have a confederate statue in the University Library in the University Cemetery not in the library. Joan just in your office. [laughter] gary i will be sending my resume around beginning on monday. [laughter] gary in the cemetery. John i think you succeeded more jokes. Gary they talked about the decoration day, confederate memorial day and so forth. What is going on in the way of commemorating the union cause while the wartime generation still lives . What are some of the things that went on . Joan most of what i know is from reading john neff. [laughter] gary one of you please say something. Joan im going to throw it to you. Then that is the idea that somehow exists today, and was present in the discussion of the lost causes is that is the most powerful cause, and it sprang fullblown in 1865, its simply not true. All you have to do is go to National Battlefield parks, see monuments to the citizen soldier of the army, the generals, the fact that the union cause preserving the republi
Makes the case of the number of men from slave states that wore blue uniforms gave a decisive edge to the union in the end. He finds 450 thousand men from slave states were union blue. This is a new framework for thinking about the war. Lets talk a little bit about men in the ranks and give some examples to the audience of some of these troops and their stories. Prof. Gannon there are so many. One of the things people have no idea is how many medal of honor winners there were among colored troops there were 14 in one battle. Christian fleetwood was one of those medal of honor winners. Robert penn, there are so many others. There were also the African Americans in the navy who were also awarded the medal of honor. They were so much more. So many stories. Its incredible about their sacrifice. Most people dont realize the men who fought at port hudson were officers, black officers among them. The 54th massachusetts had black officers at the end. One of the better known people was joseph w
Long days and lose track of things and make bad decisions. You are fatigue mentally fatigued mentally and physically. When word comes out that there is a flag of truce it is a shock. And really shakes them to their foundations, it is really hard to accept. They have been fighting and all of a sudden the war will be over quickly. The surrender meeting takes place in the mclean house, a private home chosen for the occasion. There are about a dozen witnesses in the room. Of course when you have a dozen or so witnesses you are going to get a dozen or so different stories. One of the frustrating things is that a lot of the accounts do not agree. We agree on a lot of the general details but not necessarily the order of things and some accounts mention one thing and others do not. In general we understand the flow of the conversation and what the generals talked about. The terms that grant offers to generally general lee were inspired by president lincoln who wanted to end the war easily and
Today. Two books i think we have them for sale in the bookstore. The most recent 1 i grabbed the wrong one. What is the title of the most recent one . To the bitter in. To the bitter end. And the second one, the final days of the army of tennessee. It is the transmississippi and indian territory. It was one of the florida regiments, the last surrendered group. Robert dunkerly. [applause] mr. Dunkerly good morning. I want to thank the organizers for having me. I really appreciate the invitation. Its great to be here with so many people interested in this topic. What i would like to do is talk about all of these surrenders. I do want to compare these surrenders. Talk about how different they are, because each of them unfolded in its own way. And each of these surrenders happens independently and they each have a fascinating story and talk about how the civil war will set the stage for reconstruction. All right. Im not going to spend a lot of time on appomattox. A couple points i do want
It is about an hour. I want to introduce our speaker for the morning, Robert Dunkley is a historian awardwinning author, he has a degree in history from st. Vincent. He has worked at nine different historic sites, most recently on Richmond National battlefield park. He has written two books that are specifically listed. Im sure he will be talking about them today. I think we have at least one of them in the bookstore, the most recent one. To be bitter end, and the other one is the confederate of greensboro. His talk today will be on the forgotten territories. I hope he might mention florida a little once or twice. It was one of the regimens that was one of the last surrendered groups. Bert dunkley. [applause] bert good morning. I want to thank the organizers for having me. I appreciate the invitation. It is great to be here with so many people interested in the topic. What i would like to do was talk about all of the surrenders, not so much on appomattox, i think you have covered that