Lecture: Portrait of a Civil War Marriage

It’s sort of a “The Notebook” movie meets “The Civil War” documentary.

On Wednesday, February 12^th, at 7:30 PM at the Cranford Community Center at 220 Walnut Avenue, you can take a peek into the personal lives of a real-life 19^th century couple, and glimpse the ways the history and happenings of the time touched their marriage.

Historian John Zinn, an independent historian and Chair of the NJ Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee, will present a lecture entitled “Portrait of a Civil War Marriage.” The presentation is based on more than 40 letters that William Lloyd, of the 33rd New Jersey Regiment, wrote to his wife, Mary, who lived in both Hoboken and Matawan during the war. Zinn is also the author of “The Mutinous Regiment: The Thirty-third New Jersey in the Civil War,” and has contributed many articles to anthologies on New Jersey and the Civil War.

Admission to the program is totally free.  The program was arranged by the Cranford Historical Society and the Cranford Public Library. Part of the “Civil War 150 Project,” It is presented by the Library of America in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History as part of the “Civil War 150 Project,” and is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  The project is a collaborative effort to share and connect Civil War related data across local, state, and federal institutions during the four year sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, beginning in April of 2011.

What a wonderful, touching way to learn about an important piece of our nation’s history, and see it through so much more than just history books.  This is a way to see it through the eyes, hearts, and experiences of real people who were actually touched by the events.  To me, that makes it so much more real and meaningful.