SYLACAUGA, Ala. – The B.B. Comer Memorial Library’s SouthFirst Bank Adult Lecture Series – “These Are Our Stories” – will be on Wednesday, Jan. 24.
John Sledge will chronicle Alabama’s extraordinary military saga during our nation’s most dramatic trial – The American Civil War. Alabama’s role in the Civil War – told largely through the lens of battlefield experiences in Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee with few professional studies relating the state’s Civil War battles in any great detail – has generally assured Alabamians that what happened in the state’s borders was inconsequential or rather forgettable.
After decades of study, Sledge’s riveting account of Alabama’s Civil War offers another take with information on obscure figures and forgotten landscapes where war was waged – a profound spectacle of combat on Alabama soil and waters. Ken Burns, Emmy Award winning producer and director of The Civil War documentary said, “If all politics is local then history is more so – and John Sledge’s story is edifying, well written, and revealing.”
John Sledge is senior architectural historian for Mobile Historic Development Commission and a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He is author of Cities of Silence: A Guide to Mobile’s Historic Cemeteries; The Mobile River; and These Rugged Days: Alabama in the Civil War. John and his wife Lynn live in Fairhope, Alabama. He is the son of Eugene Sledge, author of a memoir of his World War II service with the Marine Corps, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa.
Library Director, Tracey Thomas, said, “We are happy that this noted author/historian is willing to make the long drive up from Fairhope to share the results of his decades of study of Alabama’s military role in the Civil War. He grew up in Alabama and has a special interest in our state’s history. We hope that everyone will plan to join us to hear his remarkable story.”
Refreshments will be served at 11:00 a.m. with the presentation following, beginning at 12:00 p.m. Books will be available for purchase after the program.
The jazz program – “Our Stories in Music and Song” – was scheduled for Jan. 17, and had to be postponed because of the snow. It has been rescheduled for March 14.
Call the Comer Library at (256)249-0961 for more information about this program, or email Tracey Thomas at [email protected].
