Gettysburg College’s Civil War Institute, directed by Peter Carmichael, will have as this year’s theme “Reconstruction and the Legacy of the Civil War.” The conference has already sold out, an interesting reflection on claims that no one really wants to remember or reflect upon Reconstruction.
C-SPAN (in this case, C-SPAN 3, I believe) will be present, broadcasting live on the afternoon and evening of June 18 while recording other sessions for future broadcast. Yours truly will speak at 7:15 PM Eastern Time on “Ulysses S. Grant and the Continuing Civil War,” where I’ll give people an overview of some of the themes that will be part of the second and concluding volume of my Grant biography, entitled Ulysses S. Grant: The Fruits of Victory, 1865-1885. You may follow the proceedings and commentary on Twitter at #cwi2016. Note that my talk will be the last one of the evening: clearly Peter is depending on me to finish the day (reprising my role as scholarship’s answer to Mariano Rivera). Given who’s talking before, I hope I have enough time to cover my topic and answer questions. If not, I’m prepared to burn one of his scarves.
In preparation for the conference, I answered a few questions about my topic.
Crossroads 
So will Pete queue up Mr. Sandman for you as you approach the podium?
Enter Sandman. But Mr. Sandman would work for Peter.
I hope someone during the course of the conference discusses the role of Thaddeus Stevens. Otherwise, a large part of Reconstruction will be left out.
Back in 1992 I delivered a paper on Stevens at Lancaster. I have no idea whether he’ll come up this time.