On July 4, 1863, Maj. Gen. Grant’s 47-day siege of Vicksburg ended with the surrender of the Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. John Pemberton, thus removing one of the only remaining Rebel strongholds on the Mississippi River. Three of the nation’s foremost Civil War historians discuss the operations that made up one of the most remarkable military campaigns of the American Civil War.
Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman were two of the most famous — and some might say infamous — generals of the American Civil War. Two historians gather to discuss the lives, careers, and complicated legacies of Grant and Sherman.
Celebrating the release of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, the New-York Historical Society presents a screening of this monumental film followed by a conversation with screenwriter and playwright Tony Kushner and Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer. Join us for an evening commemorating President Lincoln and those who led the courageous fight to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, a copy of which is currently on display at the New-York Historical Society.
The American Civil War was the largest non-British conflict ever fought by British men and women. Serving as soldiers, spies and nurses for both the Union and Confederacy, never again would so many risk their lives on behalf of a foreign cause. In this discussion, acclaimed historian Amanda Foreman, in conversation with Harold Holzer, takes the audience on a journey to the drawing rooms of London, the offices of Washington and the front lines of a divided America to examine Great Britain’s integral role in the Civil War.
A century and a half after Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter to ignite the Civil War, leading historians ask and answer the crucial questions: What really caused the conflict? Could the Civil War have been avoided? Did Lincoln invite the first shot—or did the Union “get lucky?” This program marks the start of an ongoing New-York Historical Society focus on the great American tragedy with the first of several discussions and lectures.