Special Guest Ed Cotham

​Ed Cotham is the author of seven books on Texas and the Civil War. He is the retired President of the Terry Foundation, the largest private provider of college scholarships in Texas. An active member of several history preservation groups, Ed leads frequent tours of Texas battlefields including 26 straight years of annual tours around the January 1 anniversary of the Battle of Galveston. Ed also serves as a volunteer Marine Steward for the Texas Historical Commission. 

The Battle of Galveston (January 1, 1863)The Civil War history of Galveston is one of the last untold stories from America's bloodiest war, despite the fact that Galveston was a focal point of hostilities throughout the conflict. As other Southern ports fell to the Union, Galveston emerged as one of the Confederacy's only lifelines to the outside world. When the war ended in 1865, Galveston was the only major port still in Confederate hands. In this beautifully written narrative history, Ed Cotham draws upon years of archival and on-site research, as well as rare historical photographs, drawings, and maps, to chronicle the Civil War years in Galveston. His story encompasses all the military engagements that took place in the city and on Galveston Bay, including the dramatic Battle of Galveston, in which Confederate forces retook the city on New Year's Day, 1863.  Cotham sets the events in Galveston within the overall conduct of the war, revealing how the city's loss was a great strategic impediment to the North. Through his pages pass major figures of the era, as well as ordinary soldiers, sailors, and citizens of Galveston, whose courage in the face of privation and danger adds an inspiring dimension to the story.

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