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General News: Civil War Sesquicentennial Lecture Series
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| Dr. Craig Symonds |
August 17, 2014
from the Cornwall Public Library
CORNWALL, NY – On Monday, September 15th at 6:30 p.m., Cornwall Public Library will present the next lecture in the continuing, award-winning Civil War Sesquicentennial Lecture Series. The talk, entitled “Damn the Torpedoes” – The Battle of Mobile Bay, will be presented by Dr. Craig L. Symonds, distinguished author and Professor of History Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy.
During the month of August, 1864, a combined Union force initiated operations to close Mobile Bay to blockade running. On August 5, Rear Admiral David Farragut’s Union fleet of eighteen ships boldly entered Mobile Bay and received a devastating fire from Forts Gaines and Morgan and other points. After passing the forts, Farragut engaged in a slow-motion slugfest with the Confederate ironclad CSS Tennessee, under the command of Adm. Franklin Buchanan. After forcing the Tennessee to surrender, Union forces beseiged Fort Gaines and Fort Morgan, which controlled the mouth of Mobile Bay. By August 23, Fort Morgan, the last big holdout, fell, shutting down the strategic port. The city, however, remained uncaptured.
Dr. Craig L. Symonds is Professor of History Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy. The first person to win both the Naval Academy’s “Excellence in Teaching” award (1988) and its “Excellence in Research” award (1998), he also served as History Department chair from 1988 to 1992, and received the Department of the Navy’s Superior Civilian Service medal three times. He was Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island (1971-74) and at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England (1994-95). After retirement in 2005, he returned to the Naval Academy for one year in 2011-12 to serve as “The Class of 1957 Distinguished Professor of American Naval History.”
Symonds is the author or editor of twenty-six books, including prize-winning biographies of Joseph E. Johnston (1992), Patrick Cleburne (1997), and Franklin Buchanan (1999), as well as The American Heritage History of the Battle of Gettysburg (2001). Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History, (2005) won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize for Naval History. His 2008 book, Lincoln and His Admirals: Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. Navy, and the Civil War, won the Barondess Prize, the Laney Prize, the Lyman Prize, the Lincoln Prize, and the Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Award. He also won the Nevins-Freeman Prize in 2009. His book on the Battle of Midway was published in 2011. His newest book is NEPTUNE: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings, released in May 2014.
The lecture begins at 6:30 p.m. at Munger Cottage which is located up the hill from the library. It will be preceded and followed by a Book Signing. Books will be available to purchase courtesy of the Friends of Cornwall Library.
The event is supported by a grant from the New York Council for the Humanities, by the Cornwall Public Library Foundation, and by Caldwell House in Salisbury Mills, NY (www.caldwellhouse.com). Registration is not required.
For more information about this program and/or Cornwall Public Library’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Lecture Series, please call the Library at 845-534-8282 and speak with Karen LaRocca-Fels, Library Director.
Registration is not required.
Cornwall, NY 12518
Phone 845-534-8282
Fax 845-534-3827
www.cornwallpubliclibrary.org
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