Civil War Lecture and Traveling Exhibit at Sloan-Hendrix

Mark Christ will deliver a lecture on the Civil War in Arkansas at Sloan-Hendrix High School in

Imboden on Tuesday October 15 at 6:30 at the Bill McCurley Gymnasium. The lecture will be in

conjunction with the exhibit “Civil War in Arkansas, 1861-1865” that will be appearing at Sloan- Hendrix.

The Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, in cooperation with the Old State House

Museum and the Arkansas Humanities Council is offering the traveling exhibit about the states

involvement in the Civil War to towns and communities all over the state through 2015 to share

information about Arkansas’ Civil War heritage. The exhibit will be displayed at Sloan-Hendrix

from October 7 – October 20

Christ is the community outreach director for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program,

an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage. His numerous works on the Civil War in

Arkansas have gone beyond accounts of battles to examine the effect of the war upon those who

fought as well as on the civilian population.

His Civil War Arkansas, 1863: The Battle for a State won the 2010 Douglas Southall Freeman

Award, given for the best published book in the field of Southern history, and the 2013 Booker

Worthen Literary Prize that is awarded by the Central Arkansas Library System.

Among the other works that he has written or edited are “Rugged and Sublime”: The Civil War

in Arkansas; “Getting Used To Being Shot At”: The Spence Family Civil War Letters; “All Cut

to Pieces and Gone to Hell”: The Civil War, Race Relations and the Battle of Poison Spring;

“The Die is Cast”: Arkansas Goes to War, 1861; and “The Earth Shook and Trees Trembled”:

Civil War Arkansas 1863-1864.

Sentinels of History: Reflections on Arkansas Properties Listed on the National Register of

Historic Places that he edited with Cathryn H. Slater won an Award of Merit from the American

Association for State and Local History

Christ has two volumes slated for publication in 2014: The Diary of Jacob Haas as a Soldier in

the Civil War and “I Do Wish This Cruel War Was Over”: First Person Accounts of Civil War

Arkansas from the Arkansas Historical Quarterly.

The Civil War Trust, the largest nonprofit battlefield preservation organization in the United

States, awarded him its 2013 State Preservation Leadership Award.

Christ is the chair of the Arkansas Humanities Council and serves on the board of trustees

of both the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission and the Arkansas Historical

Christ received his undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and his

Master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma.

Paul Austin, Executive Director of The Arkansas Humanities Council, will introduce Christ. The

lecture is free and open to the public. The audience is also welcomed to attend a reception for

Mark following the lecture sponsored by the Lawrence County Extension Homemakers Clubs

and the Imboden Friends of the Library.

For more information contact Mitch Walton at 870-869-2384.