Williams Lecture commemorates 160th anniversary of Lincoln, Grant meeting

STARKVILLE, Miss.—The 2024 Frank and Virginia Williams Lecture on Abraham Lincoln and Civil War Studies will commemorate the 160th anniversary of the pivotal first meeting between U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

Scheduled for 6 p.m. on Nov. 7, the event will explore how their collaboration played a crucial role in securing the Union’s victory and ending slavery during the American Civil War. Hosted in the John Grisham Room on the third floor of Mitchell Memorial Library, the event is free and open to the public with a reception following. MSU parking gates open at 5 p.m.

Susannah J. Ural, the Frank and Virginia Williams Endowed Chair, said this year’s format will shift from a traditional lecture to a conversation between scholars who will cover a range of topics related to the theme “Lincoln and Grant in 1864: The Partnership that Saved the Union and Destroyed Slavery.”

The featured guests are two of the nation’s leading scholars of the U.S. Civil War era. University of California, Los Angeles, Professor Emeritus Joan Waugh is a critically acclaimed historian of Grant and Civil War memory. Leading Civil War military historian Joseph T. Glatthaar is an award-winning author and the Stephenson Distinguished Professor and adjunct professor of the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

“I’m looking forward to this new format for the lecture. It allows us to explore a variety of questions alongside two of the nation’s top Civil War historians about the remarkable partnership between Lincoln and Grant that changed the course of history,” Ural said.

The event also will feature a book signing highlighting works by Glatthaar, including “General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse” (Free Press, 2008) and “Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers” (LSU Press, 2000), and Waugh’s “U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth” (The University of North Carolina Press, 2009) and “The American War: A History of the Civil War Era (Flip Learning, 2016).”

“The Williams Lecture greatly benefits Mississippi ��APP and the surrounding communities, allowing us to use our strengths in the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction eras—our faculty and graduate students specializing in this period, the world-renowned Williams Collection of Lincolniana, and the incredible Grant Presidential Library—to share cutting-edge scholarship with our audience,” Ural said.

For more information about the event, email Ural at susannah.ural@history.msstate.edu.

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