Conference with professor gallagher. With that, i will turn it over to professor stephen cushman. Thank you very much. I am grateful to everybody. I wont repeat all the thank yous that have been said, but on behalf of Tamika Nunley and myself i would say thank you for being courageous and not being driven away this morning by that first talk. [ laughter ] all right, lets start with a large claim. Here it is. Without the civil war, there would be no mark twain. But why stop with one big claim. There is another that i will throw in free of charge. Without mark twain, memory of the civil war would be different from what it is today. Twain played a very significant role in civil war memory, by publishing books by various other people about the war, at least one of which, the memoirs of grant, has become a classic of American Literature and history. But lets stick to the first big claim. Without the civil war, there would be no mark twain. As we think about mark twain and the civil war, two