Symposium Spotlight: Christopher Kolakowski
Welcome back to another installment of our 2018 Emerging Civil War Symposium Spotlight. Our final speaker on Saturday, August 4, will be Christopher Kolakowski. He will bridge the divide between battlefield and political turning points of the war as he examines Ulysses S. Grant, his rise to ultimate command, and how this one man became a turning point in Federal war effort. Chris has researched and written extensively on the topic. He sent along a preview of his presentation for this year’s symposium below.
On March 9, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant received promotion to Lieutenant General and designation as Commanding General of the U.S. Army. Often discussed in passing as regards the 1864 campaigns, to contemporary eyes this was a major event in the war. His leadership made a key difference in the next 13 months, and proved the wisdom of Lincoln’s choice. Kolakowski’s talk will review the reasons behind this appointment, and its effects on U.S. strategy and conduct of the war in 1864.
Christopher L. Kolakowski was born and raised in Fredericksburg, Va. He received his BA in History and Mass Communications from Emory & Henry College, and his MA in Public History from the State University of New York at Albany.
Chris has spent his career interpreting and preserving American military history with the National Park Service, New York State government, the Rensselaer County (NY) Historical Society, the Civil War Preservation Trust, Kentucky State Parks, and the U.S. Army. He has written and spoken on various aspects of military history and leadership from 1775 to the present. He has published two books with the History Press: The Civil War at Perryville: Battling For the Bluegrass and The Stones River and Tullahoma Campaign: This Army Does Not Retreat. Chris is a contributor to the Emerging Civil War Blog, and his study of the 1941-42 Philippine Campaign titled Last Stand on Bataan was released by McFarland in late February 2016. In September 2016 the U.S. Army published his volume on the 1862 Virginia Campaigns as part of its sesquicentennial series on the Civil War.
If you still have not purchased your tickets for this year’s Symposium, Aug. 3-5, 2018, they are available to order here. They include Friday night’s reception, speakers, keynote address, and historians’ roundtable; Saturday’s line-up of talks; coffee service and lunch on Saturday; and Sunday’s tour of Stonewall Jackson’s final days.
Along with Grant’s coming to power on the “Eastern Front”, using a WWII term, there could be a study of Lee’s health, and how it deteriorates as Grant appears at the Wilderness. You have a successful young general appearing as a great general for the Confederacy is becoming more and more ill by the minute, missing opportunity and opportunity, which he probably would not have missed if he was Grant’s age and good health. Lee’s “health”, or lack of, could be considered a “turning point”.