Civil War Lecture Series

Park Historian to Launch Civil War Lecture Series June 29 at Library

Join San Juan island National Historical Park Historian Mike Vouri for his talk Connections: Pig War to Civil War, scheduled at 7 p.m., Friday, June 28, in the San Juan Island Library.

Vouri will raise the issues of secession, homeland defense and the decisions that had to be made by military leaders and individual servicemen such as Capt. George Pickett and his second in command, James Forsyth. The former resigned and went with the South; the latter embraced the Union cause.

The program is free. Call the park at 360-378-2240, ext. 2233 for more information.

Vouri’s talk is the first in the summer program series, Connections: The Far West and Civil War, which will explore the relationships between the American Civil War and the San Juan Islands and Pacific Northwest. All programs are scheduled at the San Juan Island Library, except for the Life and Times of General George Pickett, which, as it has been for more than 17 years, is slated July 3 and August 7 at the San Juan Community Theatre.

The six library programs—scheduled at 7 p.m., June 28, July 19, August 2, 3 (7:30 p.m.), 10 and 17—are free of charge, thanks to a $500 grant to the library from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

The next program  is Territorial Voices: A Civil War Reader’s Theater scheduled Saturday, July 20 with Lorraine McConaghy, historian for the Seattle Museum of Science and Industry (MOHAI).

When Abraham Lincoln was elected in November 1860, followed by the secession of seven Southern states a few weeks later, the nation was thrown into turmoil from which it would not fully recover for decades. With every scrap of news arriving by steamer, Overland stage or Pony Express, paranoia abounded not only in Washington territory, but also throughout the entire Far West. Were bands of secessionists ready to either turn the Pacific Slope to the South or create an independent “Republic of the Pacific?”

Closer to home, some wondered if the U.S. Army garrison would remain on San Juan Island. Come listen and learn how it came about.

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