Six Key Players of the Civil War

Scarcely a month goes by without another article, television show, reenactment, or new book commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the agonizing four-year bloodletting that gave our country a “new birth of freedom.” Examine the lives of six central figures who remain a spectral presence in American history: Stephen Douglas, Roger Taney, John Brown, William Seward, Clement Vallandigham, and John Wilkes Booth. While some of these men may be unfamiliar to you, all of them had their moment upon the stage of history.

Mick Chantler has been an educator and student of early American and Civil War history for over 40 years. He organized the Lincoln Bi-Centennial Celebration for Sonoma in 2009 and directed the Seminars in American History Series at Sonoma Valley Library. Chantler has taught at the OLLIs at Sonoma State, Dominican, and UC Davis and is a member of the Society of Historians for the Early American Republic (SHEAR).