September 22, 1998

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Civil War Author James

M. McPherson to Give Lecture at Middlebury College on Oct. 9

Civil War historian James M. McPherson, author of

the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Battle Cry of Freedom: The

Civil War Era,” will deliver the Charles S. Grant Memorial

Lecture on Friday, Oct. 9 at 8 p.m. in Middlebury College’s Mead

Chapel on Hepburn Road off College Street (Route 125). The title

of his talk is “Destroy the Rebel Army: Lincoln as Commander

in Chief.” The lecture is free and open to the public.

McPherson is the author of numerous books on the

Civil War, including “Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction”

(Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), “Abraham Lincoln and the Second

American Revolution” (Oxford University Press, 1991), and

“For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War”

(Oxford University Press, 1997). He also has written over 80 reviews

for publications ranging from Atlantic Monthly and The New Republic

to The New York Times Book Review.

Since 1962 he has taught at Princeton University,

where he is currently the George Henry Davis Professor of American

History. McPherson is also the recipient of a number of fellowships

and grants, including Woodrow Wilson and Guggenheim fellowships.

McPherson’s talk will be the 23rd Grant Memorial

Lecture, established in honor of the late Charles S. Grant, a

member of the Middlebury College history department for several

years prior to his untimely death in 1961. Previous speakers who

have delivered the Grant Memorial Lecture, which maintains a focus

on American history, range from David McCullough, author of the

prize-winning biography “Truman,” to Arthur M. Schlesinger,

Jr., professor in the graduate school of the City University of

New York.

For more information about the lecture, please contact

Travis Jacobs in the history department of Middlebury College

at 802-443-5315.