1861: The Civil War Awakening

On November 30, 2011, Adam Goodheart delivered the banner lecture "1861: The Civil War Awakening" With his new book, 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Adam Goodheart revisits the most turbulent and consequential year in American history. In the hands of a master storyteller, we relive a time that witnessed the breakup of the nation and the first bloodletting in what became a four-year catalog of internecine violence and destruction. As the first year of the Civil War Sesquicentennial comes to an end, this lecture pulls together all of the drama and tumult of 1861 and present vividly the characters who populated that decisive era. Adam Goodheart teaches history and is director of the C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College in Maryland. (Introduction by Paul Levengood) The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.