A unique opportunity for Civil War-era historians

[L Verge]

Those of you who are members of the Surratt Society will receive another notice of this in the February issue of the Surratt Courier, which is in the mail headed your way as I type. One of the overseers of this project, Michelle Krowl, sent us the notice shortly after we had sent the January issue to the printer.

Michelle has been a presenter at some of the special programs at Surratt House. She will be speaking in March for our Women's History lecture. Her topic is Antonia Ford Willard, a suspected Confederate spy in the outskirts of Washington City, who met her future husband, a Union officer, while under arrest. Theirs is one of those "mixed marriages" that happened during the Civil War. I suspect that Michelle may have drawn inspiration for this topic while perusing some of the letters in her care at the LOC. The title of her talk is "On Some Auspicious Day," which sure sounds like a line that Antonia (or another senorita of that era) might have written to a friend - or beau.