A Road Scholar Program by Brian (Fox) Ellis

True stories and legends woven with traditional songs and poetry from the most un-civil war. Join Brian "Fox" Ellis as he takes listeners back in time to the bloody battlefields, gruesome field hospitals, and haunted graveyards of America's deadliest war. In the persona of Mathias Stritt, a German immigrant first to enlist in Peoria who later marched with Sherman as he burned Atlanta and marched to the sea, Fox recites poems by Walt Whitman and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, interspersing his rich knowledge of the war with horror stories by Civil War soldier/reporter Ambrose Bierce and folksongs by Stephen Foster.

Prior to this performance, there will be a discussion on Civil War maritime disasters led by Don Goin.