new york times book review. we recorded the program in september of 2018. good afternoon. welcome, everybody. i m david moskowitz, head of government relations and public policy at wells fargo and pleased to be here with you today. we are pleased to serve for the eighth year as a charter sponsor of the book festival and prouder to watch the book festival grow into the incredibly popular and impactful event it has become. i wouldn t be surprised [ applause ] thank you. wouldn t be surprised to see us move the needle on some best-seller list today. it s even more important to keep the book festival a free event that serves the community. the library of congress and the book festival s purpose here is literacy which leads to learning and opportunity which matches our goal of helping our community succeed, learning to love books and learning are what the book festival is all about. in this session, ron chernow will discuss his biography of ulysses grant f we re lucky, cert
welcome everybody. i am david moscowitz, i am head of government relations and public policy at wells fargo and i m pleased to be here with you today. we are pleased to serve for the eighth year as a charter sponsor of the book festival and prouder to watch it grow to the incredibly popular, impactful event it has become. i wouldn t be surprised [applause] wouldn t be surprised to see us move on to some bestseller lists today. it s even more important to keep the book festival a free event for the community. the real purpose here is literacy which leads to learning an opportunity which matches our goal of helping our community succeed. learning to love books and learning to love learning are what the book festival are all about. in this session, ron chernow will discuss his biography of ulysses grant. if we are lucky, certain other popular founding fathers. [laughter] one thing i learned from the story of president grant was how people can evolve and through persistence
i am david moscowitz, i am head of government relations and public policy at wells fargo and i m pleased to be here with you today. we are pleased to serve for the eighth year as a charter sponsor of the book festival and prouder to watch it grow to the incredibly popular, impactful event it has become. i wouldn t be surprised [applause] wouldn t be surprised to see us move on to some bestseller lists today. it s even more important to keep the book festival a free event for the community. the real purpose is literacy which leads to learning an opportunity which matches our goal of helping our community succeed. learning to love books and learning are what the book festival are all about. in this session, - - will discuss his biography of ulysses grant. if we are lucky, certain other popular founding fathers. [laughter] one thing i learned from the story of president grant was how people can evolve and through persistence and hard work and knowledge and overcome their imp
civil war institute. it s my pleasure to introduce professor joan wall of ucla. joan wall is a specialist in civil war and reconstruction. she is the author and editor of a number of books. the book, her most recent publication is a biographer of ulysses grant, called grant, american hero, american myth. it won multiple prizes including the jefferson-davis award from the museum of the confederacy. dr. wall has come to gettysburg college back in 2011. she is also a teacher instructor at ucla. she s received numerous teaching awards and i have learned that in her gilded age class, when she does a lecture on baseball that at the end of the class, she breaks out bags of peanuts. and she tosses them out to her students. i heard that she has a mean right arm. we have, joan, ordered boxes of hard tack. [laughter] she will be tossing out hard tack this afternoon. joan will be presenting the rebels are our countrymen, countrymen, [applause] thank you peter, for that hilariou
peanuts, and tosses them out to her students. she has a mean right arm. we have ordered boxes of heart attack hard tack. she will be speaking on grant and the meeting of appomattox. [applause] dr. waugh: thank you, peter for the hilarious introduction. i m not a right-hander. if i threw hard tack at you, it would be painful. well, good morning. it is delightful to be here. i have not been at the conference for a long time at the civil war institute. i m happy to be back. i love gettysburg. i have been here many many times . when i say good morning i mean good morning because it is about 5:30 in the morning for me coming from los angeles. i think that will get through this. i do want to say that while i published the book on grant, i have not finished with him yet. i became fascinated by the surrenders that he conducted during the war and really look at surrenders as a way to understand the nature of this war as i have done in my title, and what it meant for reconstruction a