Speaker Series #6: “Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War”

Speaker Series at Sotterley

Sotterley Plantation is proud to partner with The Boeing Company in announcing our sixth presentation of the 2015 Speaker Series entitled:

Todd Brewster

“Lincoln's Gamble:

The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America

the Emancipation Proclamation

and Changed the Course of the Civil War”

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

7:00 p.m. in the Barn

On July 12, 1862, Abraham Lincoln spoke for the first time of his intention to free the slaves. On January 1, 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, doing precisely that. Popular myth would have us believe that Lincoln did not suffer from such indecision, that he did what he did through moral resolve; that he had a commanding belief in equality, in the inevitable victory of right over wrong.

Todd Brewster focuses on these critical six months to ask: was it through will or by accident, intention or coincidence, personal achievement or historical   determinism that he freed the slaves? Lincoln’s Gamble portrays the president as an imperfect man with an unshakable determination to save a country he believed in, even as the course of the Civil War remained unknown. Brewster has served as Don E. Ackerman Director of Oral History at the United States Military Academy, West Point, and is a longtime journalist who has worked as an editor for Time and Life and as senior producer for ABC News. He has written for Vanity Fair, Time, Life, the Huffington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Times, and is the coauthor with the late Peter Jennings of the bestselling books The Century, The Century for Young People, and In Search of America.

This event is FREE to the public. Advance reservations are required due to limited seating. Call 301-373-2280 to make your reservation.

Because of the generous grant and continued support from The Boeing Company, Sotterley Plantation is able to offer this important community outreach, fulfilling its mission to preserve, research, and interpret Sotterley Plantation’s diverse cultures and environments and to serve the world as an educational, cultural, and community resource.