Note:  The date of our April engagement has been changed from Friday, April 11 to Friday, April 4.

Please join us on Friday, April 4, as Dr. Chris Mackowski recounts the remarkable story of how one of America’s greatest military heroes became a literary legend.

The former general in chief of the Union armies during the Civil War, a two-term president of the United States, a beloved ambassador of American goodwill around the globe, Ulysses S. Grant was dying. The hardscrabble man who regularly smoked twenty cigars a day had developed terminal throat cancer. Thus began Grant’s final battle—a race against his own failing health to complete his personal memoirs in an attempt to secure his family’s financial security.  In this maelstrom of woe, Grant refused to surrender. Putting pen to paper, the hero of Appomattox embarked on his final campaign: an effort to write his memoirs before he died. The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant would cement his place as not only one of America’s greatest heroes but also as one of its most sublime literary voices.  The project evolved into an effort to secure the very meaning of the Civil War itself and how it would be remembered.

Dr. Mackowski is a writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University in New York, where he also serves as the associate dean for undergraduate programs. He is also the historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania Court House battlefield in Virginia. An award-winning author, he has written or edited more than a dozen books, and is the managing editor of the Emerging Civil War Series published by Savas Beatie.  A much-in-demand speaker, he has led members of our Round Table on four field trips to the battlefields in Virginia since 2019.  He is celebrated for his highly informative and inspirational presentations.

Those who are unable to attend this engagement in person are invited to tune in to the lecture and Q&A session via Zoom.  Click on the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83998107655.  No password in required.  To dial in by phone, call 1-301-715-8592 or click on the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kp3hfvtaY. The meeting ID # is 839 9810 7655.  Zoom participants should join the meeting by 7:00 pm.