The public is invited to a talk by Christopher McIlwain, author of Civil War Alabama, on Tuesday, April 19 at 4 p.m. at Pebble Hill.

Civil War Alabama is a landmark book that sheds new light on the causes, the course, and the outcomes in Alabama of the nation’s greatest drama and trauma. Based on twenty years of research that draws on primary sources such as letters, newspapers, and personal journals, Civil War Alabama presents compelling new explanations for how Alabama’s white citizens came to take up arms against the federal government.

Christopher McIlwain is an attorney in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who has spent the last twenty-five years researching nineteenth-century Alabama, focusing particularly on law, politics, and the Civil War. His article “United States District Judge Richard Busteed and the Alabama Klan Trials of 1872” appeared in the Alabama Review.

The event is free, open to the public, and will be followed by refreshments. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Support for this event comes from the Auburn University Special Lectures Fund. The Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities at Pebble Hill is located at 101 S. Debardeleben Street, Auburn. The historic 1847 Scott-Yarbrough house, known as Pebble Hill, will be open for tours from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.

For more information on the program, call 334-844-4903 or visit www.auburn.edu/cah.