Library Observes 150th Anniversary of the Civil War

A group of Civil War objects from the Library's Museum Collection will be on display on Sunday, May 22 at 2 p.m. in conjunction with the talk by noted Lincoln expert Dr. Thomas R. Turner.

Objects available for viewing, all used by Woburn soldiers, include a cartridge box, a cap box and belt, a canteen, a sash and epaulet.

In addition, for a limited time the Library is exhibiting the flag presented to Company K of the 39th Massachusetts Regiment – also known as the Woburn National Rangers - by the "Ladies of Woburn" on September 2, 1862.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the library is pleased to present a talk by noted Lincoln historian, Dr. Thomas Turner. Sunday May 22, 2011 2:00 p.m. Woburn Public Library "Abraham Lincoln's New England Connections" Dr. Thomas R. Turner, a well-respected expert on Abraham Lincoln, will speak at the Woburn Public Library on Lincoln’s local connections: his ancestors in Hingham, his visit to Massachusetts to campaign for Zachary Taylor in 1848, his son Robert at Harvard, the Bixby letter, his contribution of $10 toward the building of the Forefathers Monument in Plymouth, and also his visits to New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut after his 1860 Cooper Union Address.

Dr. Thomas R. Turner is professor emeritus of history at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Massachusetts where he taught for thirty-nine years. Professor Turner is the author of Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1982) and The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1999). His most recent book is 101 Things You Didn’t Know About the Civil War (2007).

Most recently he has been working as a consultant on the movie "The Conspirator." Robert Redford directed this movie about the Lincoln assassination. He is also the editor of the Lincoln Herald, which along with the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, is one of the two major American journals devoted to studying the life and career of our sixteenth president. Professor Turner is the longest serving editor in the Herald’s history.