Annual Civil War Lectures to be Held at Univ AL

On April 5th, 2014 the 18th annual John Caldwell Calhoun Sanders Lecture Series will be held at the University of Alabama, with several speakers giving lectures on the War, Confederate soldiers and the Confederacy. It promises to be a stimulating and informative event.

John Caldwell Calhoun Sanders, for whom the Series is named, left the University of Alabama campus in 1861 to join the Confederate Guards. The Guards became part of the 11th Regiment Alabama Volunteer Infantry at Lynchburg, VA, and remained as part of the Army of Northern Virginia throughout the War.

On August 21, 1864, Sanders, in command of Wilcox's Old Brigade, died at age 24, fighting to save the Weldon Railroad near Petersburg, Va. Calhoun was known as one of the Confederacy's three famous "Boy Generals".

I feel an affinity to Calhoun, as my own paternal Great-Grandfather, Robert F. Henry, was a cadet at the University of Alabama when the war began, and he too left to fight. He was awarded his diploma after the war, nunc pro tunc. (Latin meaning now for then). My father was named for him, and the name has now passed down to my great nephew (Henry the Fourth)!!!