Historian and author Steven Cox will present “John T. Wilder: Union General, Southern Industrialist” on Thursday, February 22 at 12 noon in the Meeting Room of the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library System (CLPLS).

The talk will explore Cox’s newest biography titled, “John T. Wilder: Union General, Southern Industrialist.” Wilder was both a Union General during the Civil War as well as an influential industrialist in both the North and the South before and after the war. Wilder began his career as a foundry owner in Greensburg, Indiana. During the war, he was the leader of the 17th Indiana Volunteers, aka “Wilder’s Lightening Brigade.” Following the war, Wilder developed mines across Tennessee and western North Carolina. Later, he was heavily involved in getting the Chickamauga Battlefield established as the first National Military Park in the United States.

Cox worked as a professor and the head of the Special Collections at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from 2001-2015, and a professor and the head of the Special Collections at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas from 2015 until his retirement last May. He is also the co-author of "When Sunflowers Bloomed Red: Kansas and the Rise of Socialism in America" with R. Alton Lee and editor of "Once I Too Had Wings: The Journals of Emma Bell Miles, 1908-1918."

Cox will also be selling and signing copies of his latest book.

The book talk is free and open to the public.

Lunch will be provided by the Friends of the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library System.

For more information call (662) 329-5304.