2026 Winter Lecture Series: The Union’s Greatest Unsung General- Fighting With and Forgetting Alpheus Williams

Featuring some of the best Rangers, historians, and authors from across the country, this popular eight-week Winter Lecture Series will once again return to the Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP) Museum and Visitor Center in 2026!

The Winter Lecture Series is held at 1:30 p.m. on weekends in the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center from January 10 through March 8, 2026. Seating is available on a first come – first serve basis. Free tickets are available day of at the Gettysburg NMP Museum and Visitor Center. Schedule is subject to change.

This week:

Historian Daniel Brennan, West Virginia University
General Alpheus Starkey Williams was considered one Union’s most reliable commanders, having led troops across seven states. Despite this, he began and ended the war with the same rank, passed over for promotion while less experienced men advanced. He once wrote in frustration, “there is an unwritten history…that somebody will be obliged to set right some day.” Discover Williams’s history, marked by battles between personal insecurity and deep pride in his men; between military success and postwar obscurity.