Admission:
Event: $10
Event & Dinner*: $39.95
*Extend your time with us and enjoy a meal in our historic, lakeside Dining Hall. Click below to register for this event and see the option to add a meal reservation. Subject to availability.
Although the American Civil War ended 160 years ago, Americans still spend every day living in its wake. Our politics are governed by its outcome, our society is shaped by its struggles, and psyches always live in a little fear that it could happen again. Abraham Lincoln remains our greatest President, and Antietam remains our deadliest day. And we must never forget that--between those fighting for the United States and those fighting against them, the American Civil War killed more Americans than all our other foreign wars, combined. Sagamore Historian Connor Williams speaks about the causes, course, and consequences of our greatest national tragedy, our the world wrought by our second American revolution, and the new birth of freedom that continues to define all of our days.
Connor Williams - Sagamore Historian
Connor Williams is a 19th Century Historian, trained at Middlebury College (B.A), Dartmouth College (M.A.), and Yale University (Ph.D, soon forthcoming).
In 2021 and 2022, Connor served as the Lead Historian for the United States Congress’ “Naming Commission,” researching the history and context of Department of Defense assets that commemorated Confederates or the Confederacy. He directed the Commission’s historical initiatives, collaborated with other historians involved and invested in the Commission’s work, and engaged with both the general public and specific stakeholders. Connor advised the Commission through historical briefings and assisted in the research and presentation of potential new namesakes to the Naming Commissioners.
Charged by Congress to investigate the causes and consequences of Confederate commemorations, Connor's work also included a much broader discussion of how Americans have remembered, could remember, and perhaps should remember the American Civil War. Although part of his work included providing recommendations on changing Confederate commemorations, at a much broader scale he was tasked with considering the Civil War as it actually unfolded and the impacts that our memorials and memories of the war have had on our society ever since.
This work culminated with Connor’s direction in writing, revising, and editing the Naming Commission’s final reports to Congress, which were accepted, endorsed, and enacted by broad bipartisan majorities of both chambers. Since then, Connor has lectured on the Naming Commission throughout the nation, including at the American Civil War Museum, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Society for Military History, and for dozens of colleges, universities, and historical communities. A book on these experiences is under contract with Macmillan's St. Martin's Press imprint, and should be released by the end of 2024.
A native New Yorker and aspiring maritime mountaineer, Connor currently lives with his family along Lake Champlain in the Adirondack Park. He serves as the Historian for Great Camp Sagamore, where he directs all history programming for several thousand visitors each summer. Most broadly, and via a variety of formats, Connor uses this role to conceive and execute innovative ways to teach environmental history, Gilded Age history, and the history of class, capitalism and inequality to diverse public history audiences.
His quest to summit the 46 ADK High Peaks ...continues.