About the Topic:
The long and bloody Civil War claimed the lives of more than 700,000 men. When it ended, former opponents worked to rebuild their nation and move into the future together. Many will find that hard to believe—especially in an era witnessing the destruction or removal of Confederate monuments and the desecration of Confederate cemeteries.
In the unique and timely publication of his new book, Patriots Twice: Former Confederates and the Building of America after the Civil War, award-winning author Stephen Hood identifies more than three hundred former Confederate soldiers, sailors, and government officials who reintegrated into American society and attained positions of authority and influence in the Federal government, the United States military, academia, science, commerce, and industry. Their contributions had a long-lasting and positive influence on the country we have today.
Many of the facts in Patriots Twice will surprise modern Americans. For example, ten postwar presidents appointed former Confederates to serve the nation as Supreme Court justices, secretaries of the U.S. Navy, attorneys general, and a secretary of the interior. Dozens of former Southern soldiers were named U.S. ambassadors and consuls, and eight were appointed generals who commanded U.S. Army troops during the Spanish-American War.
Former Confederates were elected mayors of such unlikely cities as Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Ogden, and Santa Fe, and served as governors of the non-Confederate states and territories of Colorado, West Virginia, Missouri, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Alaska, and the Panama Canal Zone.
Ex-Southern soldiers became presidents of national professional societies including the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society, to name only a few. Others paved the way in science and engineering by leading the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Geological Society of America. One former Confederate co-founded the environmental and preservation advocacy group Sierra Club, and another intellectual and scholar was president of the Society for Classical Studies.
In addition, former soldiers in gray founded or co-founded many of our nation’s colleges and universities—some exclusively for women and newly freed African-Americans. Others served as presidents of prominent institutions, including the University of California, Berkeley, and taught at universities outside the South including Harvard, Yale, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Johns Hopkins, the University of San Francisco, and Amherst College. Several others served on the governing boards of the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
Many have benefited from the post-Civil War reconciliation period contributions of former combatants who “beat their swords into plowshares.” Sam Hood’s book discusses how those highlighted in Patriots Twice (and thousands of other former Confederates who carried bayonets) found common cause and moved on together – an invaluable concept everyone should—no, must—embrace to keep American united, strong, and free.
Source: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08D9ST7T3/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
About the Speaker:
Stephen M. "Sam" Hood is a distant relative of Confederate General John Bell Hood. He is a retired industrial construction company owner, and lives in Huntington West Virginia, with his wife of 43 years, the former Martha Ann Hager. Mr. Hood is a 1970 graduate of Kentucky Military Institute, and earned a BBA in Marketing from Marshall University in 1976. He served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and has had a life long interest in Civil War history and the sport of soccer.
Mr. Hood's first book John Bell Hood: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Confederate General won the 2013 Albert Castel Civil War History Book of the Year Award and the 2014 Walt Whitman Civil War History Book of the Year Award. Mr. Hood is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. He is also a past member of the Board of Directors of the Blue Gray Education Society of Chatham VA, and a past president of the Board of Directors of Confederate Memorial Hall Museum in New Orleans.
Mr. Hood is a former Head Men's Soccer Coach at Marshall University, and he coached Huntington St. Joseph Catholic High School to four West Virginia State Championships in the 1980s. He was named West Virginia High School Coach of the Year in 1990 and 1993, was a charter inductee into the West Virginia High School Soccer Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2010, and was inducted into the West Virginia Soccer Hall of Fame in 2016. A former high school and college soccer referee, Mr. Hood founded the West Virginia Intercollegiate Soccer Officials Association in 1982.
Source: https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-M.-Hood/e/B00CF641MU%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
__________________________________________
