prof. hess: thank you for that generous introduction. i was thinking about it this morning, what made me to this book? whenever you go to a civil war roundtable and mention the name braxton bragg, there is laughter coming up the audience because in some ways, it is almost a joke in some ways. in other ways, as pete says, a cheap joke. and also the question this morning as someone asked of holeck theragg or most divided person of the civil war? and never dawned on me to say the most hated men of the civil war, but maybe i should have said that? let me start out with a story, and i know many of you know this story. i overheard at least two people this morning telling this story to somebody else, but they did not know i was sitting next to them. grant memoirs, ulysses as enlisted a story. even though grant himself admitted he did not know if it was true or not, but he said, it is kind of emblematic. the story is before the civil war, braxton bragg in the u.s. army commanded a co
one of our own, a phd from 2010, kathryn shively meier, who is now an associate professor of history at virginia commonwealth university where she teaches courses on the american civil war and american military history and environmental history credit her research interests history. her research interests involve the 1600s and 19 century, with focus on the interactions of soldiers with their natural environments and their mental and physical health. her first book, common soldiers in the environment won the wily silver prize for best first book on the civil war, and she is conducting an early study on jubal early. .elcome kathryn shively meier [applause] kathryn: thank you for having me. i m delighted to be here. i think you will see some connections between my talk on jubal early and the earlier talk we heard on richard taylor. the confederate general jubal early was one of the influential losers in american history. [laughter] kathryn: known for a petulant personality,
now an associate professor of history at virginia commonwealth university where she teaches courses on the american civil war and american military history and environmental history credit her research interests history. her research interests involve the evolution of american forces from the 1600s and 19 century, with focus on the interactions of soldiers with their natural environments and their mental and physical health. her first book, common soldiers in the environment won the wily silver prize for best first book on the civil war, and she is conducting an early study on jubal early. welcome kathryn shively meier. [applause] kathryn: thank you for having me. i m delighted to be here. i think you will see some connections between my talk on jubal early and the earlier talk we heard on richard taylor. the confederate general jubal early was one of the influential losers in american history. [laughter] kathryn: known for a petulant personality, early loss at the shenan
focus on the interactions of soldiers with their natural environments and their mental and physical health. her first book, common soldiers in the environment won the wily silver prize for best first book on the civil war, and she is conducting an early study on jubal early. welcome kathryn shively meier. [applause] kathryn: thank you for having me. i m delighted to be here. i think you will see some connections between my talk on jubal early and the earlier talk we heard on richard taylor. the confederate general jubal early was one of the influential losers in american history. [laughter] kathryn: known for a petulant personality, early loss at the shenandoah valley in 1864, contribute to overall confederate defeat. yet, scarcely missing a beat after the confederate surrenders in spring 1865, he seized control of the historical narrative to substantially redeem his reputation and position himself as chief authority on robert e lee s army of northern virginia, when robert
because the topic is braxton bragg, the but of all jokes. not of particularly humorous crew. fall back on the chief jokes accumulated and led to this really distorted view of both men, but today, we will be talk about braxton bragg. written a fantastic biography of braxton bragg. i believe we have some copies of that volume. we come here because we want to come the case history. we do not want to put forth easy answers, and i think earl has done this on all of his work, he will get you to think long and hard. get you to think that bragg was the second coming of napoleon, but he will get you to ponder and to think about this very important confederate general. it is my pleasure to welcome earl hess. [applause] prof. hess: thank you for that generous introduction. i was thinking about it this morning, what made me to this book? whenever you go to a civil war roundtable and mention the name braxton bragg, there is laughter coming up the audience because in some ways, it is alm