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Lecture – “The Revolution’s Last Men: The Soldiers Behind the Photographs”

April 14 @ 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

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This is a hybrid event.  Visitors may attend in-person in the Visitor Center Auditorium or virtually on Zoom.  In the event of inclement weather, this will be a virtual-only event.  Registrants will be notified.  Registration is required.  Log-in information provided at registration.

Join historian Don Hagist as he discusses his book The Revolution’s Last Men:  The Soldiers Behind the Photographs.  During the Civil War came the realization that only a handful of veterans of the American Revolution still survived.  Six of these men were photographed and interviewed for a book by Reverend E. B. Hillard that appeared late in 1864. Their images have captivated generations since then; but—through a combination of faded memories and the interviewer’s patriotic agenda—the biographies accompanying these amazing photographs were garbled and distorted, containing information that ranged from inaccurate to implausible. Now for the first time the military careers of these men have been researched in detail using a wide range of primary sources. The Revolution’s Last Men presents the original biographical interviews published in 1864, pension depositions and other first-hand accounts given by each man later in life, and an up-to-date biography examining each soldier’s service and discussing the inaccuracies and uncertainties of the previously published accounts.

Register here.