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At 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the public is welcome to view a discussion by Dr. Ben Severance on the impact of the Civil War and the attitudes toward the war by Alabama civilians and elected officials.

Dr. Severance is a professor of history at Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM). He will be the guest speaker for the spring meeting of the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society. Since Bradshaw-Chambers County Library is not available for presentations, the discussion will take place online via Zoom.

All those who want to take part will need to send an active email address to programs@cvhistoricalsociety.org by noon on Sunday. Moderator Charles Powers will respond to each email with specific directions on how to connect.

Dr. Severance has been a faculty member at AUM since 2005.

He received his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in 2002.

His principal areas of research and teaching include the U.S. Civil War and American military history. Prior to seeking his Ph.D., he was an officer in the U.S. Army.

The focus of Severance’s book “A War State All Over” is Alabama’s political allegiance to the Confederacy.

His research for the project is oriented around the important mid-war elections of 1863, which serve as a crucial gauge of popular support for the Confederate war effort. Severance argues that a strong majority of Alabama’s political leaders remained steadfast to the cause of southern independence up until the end of the war.

The book illuminates the often-overlooked lives of Alabama’s wartime governors, congressmen and state legislators.

Sunday’s online meeting will be the first of four quarterly meetings. The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society (CVHS) has been in continuous operation since its founding in 1953. It is a membership-based organization with members from all across the U.S.