Please note: Optional Dinner will start at 6:00 PM. The Lecture will start at 7:00 PM. To make dinner reservations, email CvilleCWRT@gmail.com and indicate your entree choice: beef, salmon or chicken. Dinner includes salad and dessert. Cost is $24 for members and $30 for non-members.

LECTURE TOPIC:  Preston Brooks. In 1856, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks assaulted Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the US Capitol, defending his family's honor and the rights of slaveholders. In beating Sumner unconscious, Brooks fueled a nationwide clash over slavery that ended in civil war.

SPEAKER BIO:  Paul Quigley is Director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and the James I. Robertson, Jr. Associate Professor of Civil War History in the History Department at Virginia Tech. He also serves as the Director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Humanities. Originally from Manchester, England, he holds degrees from Lancaster University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.