Sacred Trust Evening Lecture, July 1, 2024 7:00PM

Item details

Date

July 1, 2024 7:00PM

Name

Sacred Trust Evening Lecture

Description

"The Aftermath of War: Civil War Veterans in the Egyptian Army, 1868-78" with Thavolia Glymph, Ph.D.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, some 50 white Union and Confederate Civil War veterans joined the army of the Khedive Ishma‘īl of Egypt. They went with the blessing of President Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. William T. Sherman. Both men helped recruit them. Some carried endorsements from prominent congressmen, judges, New York merchants and Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. The origins of their adventure lay in the tangled histories of Egypt, the U.S. and Europe and in slavery and cotton. Seeking to modernize the Egyptian army and expand the territory of Egypt, the Khedive sought military expertise in Europe and America. The former Civil War soldiers seemed well-qualified for his needs. They had wide-ranging military expertise dating from the Seminole and Mexican wars. They had led armies, treated injuries and surveyed and built forts, railroads and dams. Examine with Thavolia Glymph the motives that led these men to leave the U.S., put on the uniform of a foreign nation and take up arms on its behalf. The years of their collective service in Egypt—1868-1869—bracketed the era of Reconstruction.

 

Thavolia Glymph, Ph.D. is Peabody Family Distinguished Professor of History and Professor of Law at Duke University, and president of the American Historical Association. She is author of the multiple award-wining books, Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household (Cambridge University Press) and The Women's Fight: The Civil War's Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation (University of North Carolina Press) and serves on the boards of several organizations, including the Gettysburg Foundation and the Society of American Historians. She currently holds the 2023-2024 Rogers Distinguished Fellowship in Nineteenth Century History at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

 

Book Signing | 6-6:45 p.m. and 8-8:30 p.m. | Museum Lobby | Tickets required in advance

Thavolia Glymph, Ph.D. will sign her works before and after the presentation.

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