‘Connecticut Goes To War’: Gunn Museum To Commence Yearlong Commemoration Of Civil War Anniversary With March 12 Lecture

WASHINGTON GREEN — Dr Walter L. Powell will present a lecture entitled “Connecticut Goes to War: The Fort Sumter Crisis and the Call to Arms” at 2:30 pm on Saturday, March 12, in the Wykeham Room of Gunn Memorial Library. His lecture will explore the political reaction to the Fort Sumter Crisis, the role of Connecticut Governor William A. Buckingham and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles (a Connecticut native), and the efforts to mobilize the state for war after President Lincoln’s Call For Volunteers in April 1861.

Walter L. Powell is a historic preservation consultant and adjunct professor of History at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Md., where he is currently teaching courses in American history and the “Age of the American Civil War.” He is also an Adjunct Professor of Historic Preservation at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va.

He holds a master’s in history and a PhD in English from Kent State University. For 17 years he served as director of planning and historic preservation for the Borough of Gettysburg, where, among many other projects, he directed the restoration of the Gettysburg Railroad Station, built in 1858, and served as the borough’s principal liaison to the National Park Service Project Team that planned the exhibits and restoration of the David Wills House — where President Abraham Lincoln completed the Gettysburg Address.

A former president of the Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides and the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association, Dr Powell has written and lectured widely on the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, and Battlefield Preservation, including, most recently (with Linda Foster Arden) Letters from the Storm: The Intimate Civil War Letters of Lt. J.A.H. Foster, 155th Pennsylvania Volunteers (Chicora, PA: Mechling Press, 2010). Copies of his books will be available for purchase after the lecture.

The event is free and open to the public. The library-museum is at 5 Wykeham Road, at the intersection of Wykeham Road and Route 47, on Washington Green. Call 860-868-7756 or visit GunnLibrary.org for more information.

The Gunn Memorial Library and Museum’s yearlong commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War will commence with this lecture. To learn more about other commemoration events visit the library-museum’s website.