Civil War Symposium IV scheduled for April 28-29 at Kroc Center

QUINCY — The Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County and the Tri-States Civil War Round Table are the sponsors of Civil War Symposium IV on Friday and Saturday, April 28-29 at the Kroc Center, 405 Vermont.

This year’s event features two noted Lincoln scholars, a fiddle player, a nationally known Ulysses S. Grant re-enactor and experts in the Civil War era and Illinois history.

A presentation by keynote speaker Edna Greene Medford, professor emerita at Howard University in Washington, D.C., will kick off the symposium at 7:05 p.m. April 28. Medford is an award-winning Lincoln scholar who specializes in 19th-century United States and African-American history.

She is a recipient of the special bicentennial edition of the “Order of Lincoln” given by the State of Illinois for her study of Lincoln and the Civil War era. She has served on the board of the Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, the Ulysses S. Grant Association, the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College and the Abraham Lincoln Institute. She wrote “Lincoln and the Emancipation” and co-authored “The Emancipation Proclamation: Three Views.”

Following Medford’s program, the husband and wife team of Tim and Emily Roberts will read from his book “This Infernal War,” an edited collection of the Civil War letters of William and Jane Standard from Fulton County, Ill. Roberts has a doctorate from Oxford University and is on the faculty of Western Illinois University. He has taught abroad and received many grants and fellowships, including the Fulbright.

Local historians comprise the early bird vignette portion of the event which begins at 8 a.m. April 29. Presenters are Kurt Leimbach (on Dr. Samuel Everett), Troy Culbertson (on the Quincy Illinois Veterans Home), Jeff VanCamp (on Chaddock’s roots) and Arlis Dittmer (on The Soldier’s Mother, Elizabeth Leebrick).

Curt Fields, a nationally known Ulysses S. Grant living historian, will speak at 9:10 a.m. as President Grant about his life with his wife, Julia. Fiddler and historical novelist Cody Engdahl will offer a history of the Civil War through fiddle tunes at 10:15 a.m.

The symposium will conclude with a program beginning at 11:20 a.m. by Samuel Wheeler, who will speak on the Matson slave trial, Lincoln’s most controversial legal case.

The symposium is free and open to the public, but reservations are required through the HSQAC office. They can be made by calling 217-222-1835 or emailing info@hsqac.org.