Author, MSSU professor to give presentation on liquor in the Civil War Armies

(From Southern News Service)

The Civil War remains a defining chapter in our nation’s history, and the strategic significance of Southwest Missouri during the conflict cannot be understated.

History buffs will have the opportunity to learn more as the Sherwood Speaker Series continues at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 8, in Webster Hall’s Corley Auditorium at Missouri Southern State University. Dr. Megan Bever, author and assistant professor of history at Missouri Southern, will present “The Trouble with Tanglefoot: Liquor in Civil War Armies.”

The series is hosted by Missouri Southern and presented by Sherwood/Rader Farm Civil War Park, Inc.

“The primary mission of Sherwood/Rader Farm Civil War Park is education,” said Brad Belk, MSSU’s community historian. “What better way to convey that message than through scholars from the academic world with an added ingredient of our local Civil War experts.”

Bever has published articles in Civil War History and The Journal of Sport History. She co-edited, with Scott A. Suarez, “The Historian Behind the History: Conversations with Southern Historians.” An article focusing on Confederate prohibition will appear in The Journal of Southern History in the spring of 2019. She is currently at work on a book-length project exploring the role of alcohol in the Civil War.

The Sherwood Series will conclude on Nov. 5 with a presentation by Dr. Ian Michael Spurgeon, author and military historian with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Washington, D.C.

Admission is free and open to the public.

KGCS, the university’s television station, has been recording the series for broadcast. It will also be available to view on the station’s YouTube channel – KGCS Missouri Southern.