ZOOM-ONLY MEETING

JOAN WAUGH

Frank Scaturro 

about

"U.S. Grant and the Surrender at Appomattox"

About the Topic:

Ulysses S. Grant stood at the center of the American Civil War maelstrom. The Ohio native answered his nation’s call to service and finished the war as a lieutenant general in command of the U. S. Army. Three years later he ascended to the presidency in an attempt to better secure the peace he had helped win on the battlefield. Despite his major achievements in war and peace, political and sectional enemies battered his reputation. For nearly a century his military and political career remained deeply misunderstood. 

Since the Civil War centennial, however, Grant’s reputation has blossomed into a full renaissance. His military record garners new respect and, more recently, an appreciation for his political career—particularly his strong advocacy for civil rights—is quickly catching up. Throughout these decades his personal memoirs, marking him as a significant American “Man of Letters,” have never gone out of print.

Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of a man whose towering impact on American history has often been overshadowed and in many cases, ignored. This collection of essays by some of today’s leading Grant scholars offers fresh perspectives on Grant’s military career and presidency, as well as underexplored personal topics such as his faith and his family life.

Frank Scaturro, President of the Grant Monument Association (and a former speaker to our group (see https://cwrtdc-audio.blogspot.com/p/scaturro-grant.html) will interview Dr. Waugh regarding, among other things, her essay in Grant at 200, entitled "U.S. Grant and the Surrender at Appomattox."

About the Speakers:

Joan Waugh, Professor Emerita of the UCLA History Department, researches and writes about nineteenth-century America, specializing in the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age eras. Dr. Waugh has published many essays and books on Civil War topics, including U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth (2009) and The American War: A History of the Civil War Era (2015; 2nd edition, 2019) co-authored with Gary W. Gallagher. Other books include Unsentimental Reformer: The Life of Josephine Shaw Lowell (1998); The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture (2005), and Wars Within A War: Controversy and Conflict Over the American Civil War (2009).

President of the Society of Civil War Historians from 2020-2022, Dr. Waugh is often invited to give public lectures about the Civil War. She has been interviewed for many documentaries, including the PBS series, “American Experience” on Ulysses S. Grant and the History Channel’s production of “Lee and Grant” (2011). Dr. Waugh taught the “Civil War and Reconstruction,” and “Gilded Age America, 1865-1900” lecture courses, and has been honored with three teaching prizes, including UCLA’s prestigious Distinguished Teaching Award. She was appointed a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar from 2021-2022. Dr. Waugh’s current projects include an exploration of the nature of U.S. Grant’s surrender policy during the Civil War.

Frank Scaturro is an attorney and writer. A graduate of Columbia University and Penn Law School, he served as Counsel for the Constitution for the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2005 to 2009, where he advised Republican senators on constitutional law issues and nominations. Afterwards, he taught courses as a visiting professor at Hofstra Law School on constitutional law and the legislative process. The founder and president of the Grant Monument Association, Mr. Scaturro fought a failed government bureaucracy and pushed for a $2+ million restoration of Grant’s Tomb. He has published a number of books and articles in the area of history and law, including President Grant Reconsidered (1998), a reassessment of Grant’s presidency; The Supreme Court’s Retreat from Reconstruction (2000), an exploration of a key chapter in the history of civil rights; and Public Companies (2002), a book he co-authored on how to be a responsible public company in the wake of the corporate scandals of two decades ago. 

Mr. Scaturro has served as an associate at Cadwalader, Wickersham, and Taft and a partner at FisherBroyles LLP. He is a past Republican candidate for Congress in New York’s Fourth Congressional District. During the 114th Congress, he served as special counsel to the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives.  Mr. Scaturro  currently serves as vice-president and senior counsel of JCN. He is the co-editor of Grant at 200, a collection of essays about Ulysses S. Grant published in January following his 200th birthday observances in 2022.