CWRTDC'S PREVIOUS MEETING
VIA ZOOM

Delivered Under Fire:
Absalom Markland and Freedom's Mail

presentation by
CANDICE SHY HOOPER

Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022


About the Topic:

Candice Hooper will talk about her forthcoming book, Delivered Under Fire: Absalom Markland and Freedom’s Mail. It is the first biography of Absalom Markland, a childhood friend of Ulysses Grant. Markland was the courageous, innovative, self-made man who - at Grant’s request - developed the infrastructure of the United States military mail service during the Civil War and aided Grant’s fight against the Ku Klux Klan during his presidency. 

Harold Holzer said this about the book:

“Readers and writers who rely on Civil War-era letters to animate history have seldom given a thought to how such mail got delivered so reliably and promptly. Now Candice Shy Hooper has dispatched a true surprise package: the unusual and compelling life of General Grant’s military postal agent A. H. Markland, a truly unsung hero of the Union cause. One will devour this absorbing life story not only wondering how Markland did his unheralded job so well, but wondering why we cannot find another Markland to run the U. S. Postal Service today! Here is a special delivery treat for anyone who thinks there is nothing new to learn about the Civil War.”


 Ms Hooper's website also includes the following about the book:

During the Civil War, his movements from battlefield to battlefield were followed in the North and South almost as closely as those of generals, though he was not in the military.  

From Fort Donelson in 1862 to City Point in 1865, he traveled with Ulysses Grant’s armies, assuring the swiftest possible delivery of mail, sometimes even as bullets whizzed overhead.

After the war, his unprecedented response to Ku Klux Klan violence sparked passage of a landmark civil rights law, though he was not a politician.  

When he died in 1888, his death was reported in newspapers from coast to coast, though he’s all but forgotten today. 

He was the man who delivered the most valuable ingredient in Union soldiers’ fighting spirit during those terrible war years – letters between the front lines and the home front. 

 He was Absalom Markland, Special Agent of the United States Post Office, and this is the first time his story has been told.

For more information about Ms. Hooper, her publications, and how to pre-order her upcoming book, visit www.candiceshyhooper.com 

About the Speaker:

Born on Guam to a U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman and his intrepid Hoosier wife, Candice Shy Hooper attended more than half a dozen schools before her high school graduation. The one constant in her nomadic life were libraries from Saipan to Norfolk, Virginia, which her parents made the family’s first stop after every household move. 

Ms. Hooper received her undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Illinois and a law degree from Georgetown University.  After a career on Capitol Hill as aide to the late Congressman Charlie Wilson (“Charlie Wilson’s War”) and as a lobbyist with her husband, Ms. Hooper “discovered” her true intellectual passion.  Returning to school in 2006, she earned an MA in history, with a concentration in military history, from George Washington University.
Ms. Hooper’s work has appeared in the New York Times, The Journal of Military History, and The Michigan War Studies Review.  She has spoken at the Society for Military History annual conference, Film & History annual conference, and the Society for Civil War Historians/  She has also lectured at the U. S. Naval Academy and George Washington University.

In addition, Ms. Hooper is an award-winning poet, whose work was selected for inclusion in District Lines, an anthology published by the renowned independent bookstore Politics & Prose.

Ms. Hooper serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of The Journal of Military History and is a member of the Ulysses S. and Julia D. Grant Historical Home Advisory Board in Detroit, Michigan. She has served on the Board of Directors of President Lincoln’s Cottage at the National Soldiers’ Home in Washington, DC, and is past president of the Johann Fust Library Foundation in Boca Grande, Florida, where she spends half the year with her husband Lindsay.  They spend the other half in Lindsay’s home state of Wyoming.

Ms. Hooper's previous book, Lincoln’s Generals’ Wives: Four Women Who Influenced the Civil War, for Better and for Worse, won three national awards.


_________________

CANCELLED
CWRTDC'S MEETING WITH

AT FORT MYER AND VIA ZOOM


JON WILLEN

discusses

"CW Medicine and Diseases"


Wednesday, November 9, 2022

in the Abrams/Chaffee Room 

at Patton Hall Officers' Club
214 Jackson Avenue, Ft. Myer, VA  22211

(take the elevator to the right as you enter the building and press Floor 3 or

take the stairs up two levels)


Schedule for In-Person Meeting 

(See Below for Schedule for Remote Attendees)

5:30 pm ET: Social Period at Club for In-Person Attendees (cash bar)

6:30pm: Dinner Served

6:30pm: Start of Meeting/Introductions

6:45 pm: Start of Mini-Presentation with John Anderson

7 pm: Start of Speaker Presentation and Q&A

8:30 pm: Meeting Adjourned


Please note our Covid policies and requirements before registering, available by clicking HERE or downloading it from HERE (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c-94whtjSI721WjwMN4aJ6j21ZWI6jcW/view). 


TO MAKE AND PAY FOR RESERVATIONS, USE THE MODULE TO THE RIGHT OF THIS POST


If you have any problems making reservations online or would like to know about alternatives to making reservations or payments online, please email admin@cwrtdc.org.

Non-CWRTDC members must make reservations and remit payment online


Unfortunately, cancellations after the due date are non-refundable, as the CWRTDC must pay for the number of dinners ordered regardless of the actual attendance)


Attendees will need to enter For Myer by following the instructions  available by clicking HERE
(also see directions here) or (download them in pdf here)

Interactive Public Transportation Options are HERE



OR JOIN US VIA ZOOM


Schedule for Zoom/Remote Attendees:

6 pm ET: Zoom Platform Opens for Remote Attendee Social Period (Optional)

6:30pm: Remote Attendees Connected to In-Person Meeting

6:30pm: Start of Meeting/Introductions

6:45 pm: Start of Mini-Presentation with John Anderson

7 pm: Start of Speaker Presentation and Q&A

8:30 pm: Meeting Adjourned


NOTE: This will only be our third attempt at hosting a hybrid meeting.  Moreover, we are not allowed to access Fort Myer's Internet connection, so we will be setting up the meeting via a hotspot, which can be problematic. So, please be patient with us if we need to deal with our IT department (we all work for our technology).  Also feel free to contact our Zoom manager with any questions or problems at paul.mazzuca@gmail.com    

Or point your browser to the following link and use the Meeting ID and passcode shown below:
Zoom "Join A Meeting" Page: https://zoom.us/join
Meeting ID: 737 7733 3091
Passcode: Zoom1861

Or dial in by your location:

        +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)

        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
        +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 828 9304 8523
Passcode: 24641769

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcZG7EOkvV

For a cheat sheet on how to use Zoom's control features click HERE


About the Topic:

Approximately 750,000 Americans perished in the Civil War, of which 2/3 succumbed to disease. Charged with the medical care of these individuals were approximately 12,000 Union surgeons and 3,000 Confederate surgeons. 

Unfortunately, the state of medical knowledge at the time did not recognize the contagion of microorganisms producing many of the diseases responsible for these deaths.  Nor did physicians recognize the importance of aseptic technique in surgery. 

Dr. Willen's presentation discusses the medical and surgical practices during the Civil War, the doctors and nurses responsible for carrying out these practices, the care and transportation of the wounded, and the support groups at the time, such as the Sanitary and Christian Commissions. 


About the Speaker:

Dr. Jon Willen is a retired infectious disease physician currently living in Washington, DC after practicing for 37 years in West Hills, California. 

He is a Civil War Medical lecturer and re-enactor, portraying both Union and Confederate army surgeons as a member of the Blue and Gray Hospital Association. 

In addition to lecturing on Civil War medicine, Dr. Willen has given many presentations about the medical aspects of the Lincoln assassination and about Charles Leale, the first physician to attend the president after he was shot at Ford’s Theatre. 

Dr. Willen also serves as a docent at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, MD; the National Museum of American History; and the Anderson House, the headquarters of the Society of the Cincinnati in Washington, DC.

 Dr. Willen is the immediate past president of the Civil War Round Table District of Columbia and serves on the Board of Directors of the Society Of Civil War Surgeons.