Stuart G. Christian's guest appearances

Stuart G. Christian

Virginia Historical Society Podcasts

Barack Obama

Lawrence Jackson

James Madison

Douglas Brinkley

Woodrow Wilson

Robert E. Lee

Cokie Roberts

Jeremy Black

Patrick Henry

Louis Brandeis

John Brown

John Grady

Edward Lee

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Richard Byrd

OwlTail

Alex Kershaw

On March 24 and noon, Bruce M. Venter delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Kill Jeff Davis: The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid on Richmond in 1864." The ostensible goal of the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid was to free some 13,000 Union POWs held in Richmond. But sinister orders found on the dead body of the raid’s subordinate commander, Col. Ulric Dahlgren, pointed to a plot to capture or kill Confederate president Jefferson Davis and set the capital ablaze. Bruce Venter’s new book delves into these areas and more as he describes the political maneuvering orchestrated by Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick to get the raid approved by President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Included is a new look at the authorship of the infamous “Dahlgren Papers.” Fresh evidence on the identity of the African American guide, hanged by Dahlgren, is also revealed. And new research shows that Richmond was not defended by only “old men and young boys” when Kilpatrick and Dahlgren attacked the city. In the end, various myths and legends surrounding the raid are exposed and put to rest.

2016 Stuart G. Christian, Jr., The Bedford Boys, by Alex Kershaw

On March 17 at 5:30 p.m., Alex Kershaw delivered the 2016 Stuart G. Christian, Jr. Lecture entitled “The Bedford Boys.” June 6, 1944: nineteen boys from rural Bedford, Virginia, died in the first bloody minutes of D-Day. They were part of Company A of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division, and among the first wave of American soldiers to hit the beaches at Normandy. Later in the campaign, three more boys from this small Virginia community died of gunshot wounds. Twenty-two sons of Bedford lost—it is a story one cannot easily forget and one that the families of Bedford will never forget. Alex Kershaw will tell the true and intimate story of these men and the friends and families they left behind—the story of one small American town that went to war and died on Omaha Beach. Alex Kershaw, an honorary colonel in the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division, is the widely acclaimed author of several bestselling books about World War II, including The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice, The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of World War II's Most Decorated Platoon, The Few: The American “Knights of the Air” Who Risked Everything to Save Britain in the Summer of 1940, and The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau. His latest book is Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris.

On May 14, Craig L. Symonds delivered the 2015 Stuart G. Christian Jr. Lecture entitled “Leadership and Decision-Making in the D-Day Invasion.” On June 6, 1944, more than six thousand Allied ships carried more than a million soldiers across the English Channel to a fifty-mile-wide strip of the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable human tragedy. The sea of crosses in the cemetery sitting today atop a bluff overlooking the beaches recalls to us its cost. Most accounts of this epic story begin with the landings on the morning of June 6. In fact, however, D-Day was the culmination of months and years of planning and intense debate. Craig L. Symonds now offers the complete story of this Olympian effort. The obstacles to success were many. In addition to divergent strategic views and cultural frictions, Symonds includes vivid portraits of the key decision-makers, from Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill, to Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, who commanded the naval element of the invasion. Craig L. Symonds is Professor of History Emeritus at the United States Naval Academy. He is the author of many books on American naval history, including The Battle of Midway, Lincoln and His Admirals, co-winner of the Lincoln Prize in 2009, and Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings.

2015 Stuart G. Christian Jr. Lecture: Leadership and Decision-Making in the D-Day Invasion