Annual Civil War Lectures to be Held at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A series of lectures about the Civil War will be held Saturday, April 6, from 8:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. in Morgan Hall on the corner of Colonial Drive and Capstone Drive on the main Quad of The University of Alabama campus.

This John Caldwell Calhoun Sanders Lecture Series is named after a young student from Greene County who became one of the Confederacy’s three famous “boy generals.”

Featured speakers for this year are Will Greene of Petersburg, Va., with a paper on “The Petersburg Campaign and Alabama Troops,” Douglas Jones of Tuscaloosa speaking on “Josiah Gorgas and the Confederate Ordnance Department,” and Charles Roland of Lexington, Ky., discussing “Johnny Reb and GI Joe.”

The lectures range from biographical sketches and personal wartime experiences on campus and in the field to unit histories and accounts of battles or skirmishes involving some 900 UA alumni and its Corps of Cadets.

Following a brief Sanders Memorial Service, led by Guy W. Hubbs, the participants will move to the Gorgas House for lunch and informal discussions.

Admission is free, but luncheon reservations are required. Please register in advance. Telephone 205/348-8442, or e-mail ccumming@aalan.ua.edu.

John Caldwell Calhoun Sanders left the UA campus in 1861 and returned home to join the Confederate Guards, which became part of the 11th Regiment Alabama Volunteer Infantry at Lynchburg, Va., and remained as part of the Army of Northern Virginia throughout the war. On August 21, 1864, Sanders, in command of Wilcox’s Old Brigade, died at age 24 fighting to save the Weldon Railroad near Petersburg, Va.

The Sanders Lecture Series and Memorial is sponsored by the advisory committee of the Sanders Memorial Endowment Fund and administered jointly by the UA’s Alabama Museum of Natural History and the William Stanley Hoole Special Collections Library.