It was as if we were hearing from Mr. Jefferson himself. In the gift shop, I encountered a woman who had asked him to explain his stance on slavery, as he was a slaveowner himself. It was an evenhanded response, and he didn't absolve himself.
I thanked her for her question, and she told me she was a librarian in Manassas VA. She said, "I learned that I need to read more!"
I'll be ordering Grant's memoirs soon, and Vicksburg is about a 6 hour drive from our house. We've driven past it several times, but never stopped.
I need to get off my rear and get a History degree, where hopefully I can teach at the middle or HS level. I'm not worried about my age (66), I met my first faculty advisor in college when he was 77, and he taught economics until his retirement at 90.
My grandson enters 4th grade in August, where he'll get his first round of instruction on Texas History. I've got several excursions planned for him to supplement the curriculum: Gonzales, Hill Country, and he's already visited the Alamo. Of course, we'll walk the battlefield at San Jacinto.
I purchased several books from Osprey Publishing's Campaign series yesterday, one of which was the Texas War of Independence. These books have maps and other illustrations to assist the reader. I'm looking forward to the book on the Battle of Blenheim, for personal reasons. One of John Churchill's victories in this campaign came at the town I lived in Germany, Traben-Trarbach. To my knowledge, I never saw any historical markers in the town, and I lived there 4 years. It's not that surprising, considering the Germans and French fought over that area for probably 1000 years.
You can see him on CSPAN sometimes. He was on a few nights ago in the garden. The guy certainly knew his flowers.
The Chernow biography is very good and there are a number of good books on his Vicksburg campaign. If you want to really dig into the details, "Nothing But Victory: The Army of Tennessee, 1861-1865" by Stephen Woodworth is the history of the army Grant commanded until late 1863 when he handed it off to Sherman. That's very good as well.