The Rowan Rifles Camp No. 405 Sons of Confederate Veterans will play host to Michael C. Hardy, who will speak on the role of North Carolinians at Gettysburg, on Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m.
Hardy will speak in the Stanback Room at the Rowan Public Library. The event is free and open to the public.
North Carolina played a crucial role at the pivotal Civil War battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863. Even those who have seen the impressive battlefield statue to North Carolinians or who have tramped through the Tarheelsí position on those hallowed fields may not have experienced the battle in the words of those North Carolinians who fought it.
In his new book, ěNorth Carolina Remembers Gettysburg,î historian and author Hardy presents 77 first-person accounts of the battle by the North Carolinians who were there. Some of these accounts were written just after the battle, while others were written in the years after the war, as the old soldiers remembered their experiences and longed to chronicle them.
In October 2010, Hardy was honored as the North Carolina Historian of the Year by the North Carolina Society of Historians. You can visit his website at www. michaelchardy.com or follow his blog on North Carolina and the war.