Dr. Seth Weitz, an associate professor of history at Dalton State College, will discuss another side to the Civil War during a talk on Tuesday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. in Health Professions room 107. The talk, “Remembering Florida’s Civil War, Past and Present” is based on Weitz’s book, “A Forgotten Front: Florida During the Civil War Era.” The event is free and open to the public.
"The presentation will cover Florida’s often overlooked, but vital significance with the Confederacy during the Civil War. More than 15,000 Florida residents during the Civil War served in the Confederacy; a third was lost to war and disease," according to Dr. Weitz.
Dr. Weitz plans to explain why Florida joined the Confederacy and went to war in 1861, as well as how the war is remembered today in the state. He says the recollection of the war still breeds controversy today regarding debates over Confederate memorials, flags and remembrance.
In his book, Dr. Weitz discusses different aspects of the war, including slavery, race, religion, ethnicity, women and historical memory. The book includes essays featuring important military actions, details and warfare that occupied the Florida coastline. “A Forgotten Front” is also co-edited by Jonathan C. Sheppard.
As a native Floridian, Dr. Weitz attended Tulane University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree. He later obtained both his master’s and Ph. D in Southern U.S. history and African American history from Florida State University. At Dalton State, he teaches courses on African American history, the Civil Rights movement, the New South and the history of Georgia.
Dr. Weitz is working on two projects, a biography of Florida’s post-Reconstruction Governor, George Franklin Drew, titled “Yankee Redeemer: The Life and Times of George F. Drew” and a piece on the Civil Rights movement in Florida, both to be published by the University Press of Florida.
Many of Dr. Weitz’s other historical contributions have been published in the Historian, Tampa Bay Journal of History and FCH Annals: Journal of the Florida Conference of Historians.