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JOIN US ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2024, AT 7:15 P.M. (Pacific Time)
FOR A PRESENTATION ON:
"A JUST CAUSE: VOICES OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR"
WITH Olga Tsapina, Huntington Library's Curator of American History
And now with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you.
— Abraham Lincoln, April 30, 1864
President Abraham Lincoln - January 8, 1864
Photo by Matthew Brady Studios
(courtesy of Library of Congress)
These were the parting words that the president of the United States addressed to Ulysses S. Grant as the general-in-chief embarked on what turned out to be the deadliest campaign of the Civil War.
Three years earlier, the president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, had also invoked the blessings of Providence on a just cause.
But what was this just cause? Both Northerners and Southerners believed that they were fighting a just war against an enemy's unholy crusade. Both fought with equal tenacity and spurned compromise with equal determination. Both believed that God and the Founding Fathers were on their side.
In 1865, as the war neared its end, Abraham Lincoln pointed out that the opposing sides “read the same Bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.” He mused: “The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”
The talk highlights The Huntington Library’s famous Civil War collections to explore the great soul-searching, which made the Civil War, in the words of one war veteran, “a battle of ideas interrupted by artillery.”
From September 22, 2012 to January 8, 2013, the Huntington Library in San Marino hosted the exhibit, "A Just Cause: Voices of the American Civil War." View the original announcement on the exhibit HERE.
Olga Tsapina, Ph.D., has been at The Huntington since 1998, and currently serves as the Norris Foundation Curator of American History. Prior to coming to the Huntington, she was the curator of the collection of Russian 18th-century printed and manuscript materials at the Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Moscow University Library. She holds her Ph.D. in history from the Moscow Lomonosov University; and her scholarly interests include comparative studies of religious Enlightenment, the history of autograph manuscript collecting in the United States, and correspondence networks in British America. Tsapina’s most recent exhibition at The Huntington was “The U.S. Constitution and the End of American Slavery.”
Prior to our meeting, we invite you to view a PDF of the layout of the 2012 exhibition.
Click HERE to view.
Thanks to the volunteer efforts and expertise of our Pasadena CWRT members, Tina Miller and Monika Skerbelis, we are now able to record our monthly meetings and post the videos to our YouTube Channel for your enjoyment and edification if you are unable to join us for our live meetings. We invite you to check out the videos from our two years of virtual meetings, as well as our most recent presentations, at our YouTube Channel:
CLICK HERE
We are indebted to Tina and Monika for helping us to bring this wonderful added benefit to allow our non-local members and guests to enjoy the presentations of our distinguished roster of speakers.
PLEASE JOIN US FOR OUR IN-PERSON MEETING:
Pasadena CWRT - TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2024 - 7:15 PM (Pacific Time)
The Blinn House - 160 North Oakland Avenue - Pasadena
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