Accomplished historian Caroline Janney, John L. Nau III Professor of the American Civil War and Director of the John L. Nau Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia, will deliver the 62nd annual Robert Fortenbaugh Memorial Lecture on November 19, 2024. Co-sponsored by the Civil War Institute and the Department of History, the Robert Fortenbaugh Memorial Lecture is presented each year on November 19, the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. The goal of the lecture is to speak to the literate general public without abandoning solid scholarly moorings.
The lecture will begin at 7:00 pm at the Majestic Theater (25 Carlisle Street, Gettysburg), with a dessert reception to follow; free tickets can be obtained from the Majestic box office at 717-337-8200. Livestreaming will NOT be available in 2024, but should return in 2025.
Janney will speak on John S. Mosby: A Confederate Partisan at War, tracing the meteoric rise in the reputation of one of the Civil War’s most famous – or perhaps infamous – figures. By the spring of 1865, no Confederate name aroused more vitriol in the areas surrounding Washington, or perhaps even in the loyal North, than that of John S. Mosby. As colonel of the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry, a partisan unit better known as Mosby’s Rangers, he had directed repeated raids on Union camps and supply lines in northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley.
Mosby became so effective at curtailing Union logistics and manpower in the region that both friend and foe labeled his area of operations “Mosby’s Confederacy.” Equally as vexing for U.S. forces was the perceived brutality of the Rangers. Union generals and privates alike referred to Mosby and his men as guerrillas and cutthroats, and the desire to eradicate them seemed to preoccupy the Union high command. Newspaper accounts recounted his daring escapades, families named their newborn sons after him, and by the winter of 1865, a French artist who was painting a full-length portrait of Robert E. Lee likewise asked Mosby to sit for sketches. Even those in the loyal North became entranced by his daring antics, leading to the wartime publication of a novels based on his exploits as well as a poem by Herman Melville.