The next free public lecture in the N.C. Division United Daughters of the Confederacy Sesquicentennial Lecture Series will be “1864: The Beginning of the End of the Civil War in North Carolina”.
The lecture will be held at 10 a.m. Sept. 6 in the fellowship hall of Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church, 409 S. Fifth Ave., Wilmington. Cape Fear Chapter No. 3 will be assisting the division sesquicentennial chairman, Sue Curtis of Salisbury.
The speaker will be Dr. Chris E. Fonvielle, Jr.
Fonvielle was born and raised in Wilmington. He graduated from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and served as the last curator of the Blockade Runner Museum at Carolina Beach. He then attended graduate school, earning his master’s degree in American history at East Carolina University and his Ph.D. in Civil War studies at the University of South Carolina.
Since 1996 he has taught in the Department of History at his undergraduate alma mater. Among the books he has authored are “The Wilmington Campaign: Last Years of Departing Hope”; “Fort Anderson: Battle for Wilmington”; “Fort Fisher 1865, The Photographs of T.H. O’Sullivan”; and “Faces of Fort Fisher 1861-1864.”
The N.C. Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Sesquicentennial Committee has sponsored lectures throughout North Carolina’s eight UDC Districts since May 2011.
Lectures have been presented in Salisbury, Greensboro, Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Carolina Beach, Statesville, Wentworth, Rocky Mount, Fayetteville, Franklin, Pinehurst, Butner, Hickory, Concord, and Lincolnton.
Speakers have included history professors, authors, historians, a physician and an archaeologist who have focused on the Civil War in specific locations or periods, diseases, shortages, religion, politics, important people, invasion, archaeological research and Confederate memorials.
For information about future lectures visit division website at www.ncudc.org, or contact Curtis at southpaws@fibrant.com.