The Center for Appalachian Studies and Services and the Department of History at East Tennessee State University are sponsoring the next lecture in the Civil War Speakers Series Tuesday, Nov. 15.
Dr. Keith Bohannon, a history professor at the University of West Georgia, will present a talk entitled “The Natural Guardian of the Helpless Families of Absent Soldiers: State Welfare Efforts in Confederate Appalachia.”
Bohannon will use Southern state governments’ attempts to assist the families of Confederate soldiers to discuss the larger debate of whether the Confederacy lost the Civil War because of internal or external causes.
A native of Georgia, Bohannon earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from the University of Georgia, before going north to get his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University.
His research focuses on the Confederate Army and the Southern home front, particularly the Northeast Georgia mountains during the late antebellum and Civil War years. Bohannon is co-editor of a volume titled A Georgian with “Old Stonewall” in Virginia: The Letters of Ujanirtus Allen, Company F, 21st Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry (LSU Press, 1998) and the author of numerous published essays.
The talk will begin at 6 p.m. in Room 118 of Rogers-Stout Hall on the ETSU campus, with a reception to follow. Both the talk and the reception are free and open to the public.
For additional information, call Dr. Andrew Slap, ETSU assistant professor of history, at slap@etsu.edu or 439-4284.

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