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Gettysburg Live!

While thousands of people descend on Gettysburg, Pa., this week to observe the 150th anniversary of the pivotal Civil War battle, Washington and Lee’s award-winning Alumni College will be examining elements of the battle and the larger context of the Civil War in two separate sessions.

And here’s the good news: even if you aren’t on the W&L campus for the events, you can participate by watching the keynote addresses by two eminent scholars.

The first session, which began Sunday and continues through Wednesday, is titled simply “Gettysburg.” The second, from July 3 to July 6, is called “Civil War on the Home Front.”

On Tuesday, July 2, at 10:35 a.m. (EST), historian James I. (Bud) Robertson will present “The Loss of Jackson and the Battle of Gettysburg.” Bud is Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech. He taught Civil War history there for 44 years. The film “Gods and Generals” is based on his 1997 biography of Stonewall Jackson. His latest work, “The Untold Civil War: Exploring the Human Side of War,” was published by the National Geographic Society.

You can watch Bud Robertson’s lecture live on Tuesday at this link. It will also be archived for later viewing.

On Friday, July 5, also at 10:35 a.m., Washington and Lee politics professor Lucas Morel will present “Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address.” Lucas, currently the Lewis G. John Term Professor and head of the Department of Politics at W&L, is a renowned Lincoln scholar. He is past president of the Abraham Lincoln Institute and a board member of the Abraham Lincoln Association. He is the author of “Lincoln’s Sacred Effort: Defining Religion’s Role in American Self-Government” and is writing a book entitled “Lincoln, Race, and the Fragile American Republic.”

Lucas’s lecture will be available live on Friday at this link. It, too, will be available for later viewing in the archive.

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