CWRT Nov 2025 Meeting:Chris Kolakowski on Civil War to World War: Simon Bolivar Buckner Sr. and Jr.

2025-11-23

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Chris Kolakowski on Civil War to World War: Simon Bolivar Buckner Sr. and Jr. For More Info: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org Not many Civil War generals can claim to have had a son who was a general during World War 2. But Confederate Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner's son, of the same name, had a distinguished U.S. army career. A Kentuckian, Simon Sr. surrendered Fort Donelson to his close prewar army friend, Ulysses Grant, in 1862, and served as a corps commander in the Army of Ten...

Chris Kolakowski on Civil War to World War: Simon Bolivar Buckner Sr. and Jr.

For More Info: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org

Not many Civil War generals can claim to have had a son who was a general during World War 2. But Confederate Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner's son, of the same name, had a distinguished U.S. army career. A Kentuckian, Simon Sr. surrendered Fort Donelson to his close prewar army friend, Ulysses Grant, in 1862, and served as a corps commander in the Army of Tennessee. At war's end he surrendered the largest existing Confederate army, that of the Trans-Mississippi Department. After the war he was elected Governor of Kentucky, and ran for Vice-President in 1896.

On Nov. 14th Chris Kolakowski will talk about the two Buckners, and their interesting careers.

Christopher L. Kolakowski is Director of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, a position he has held since January 6, 2020. He received his BA in History and Mass Communications from Emory and Henry College, and his MA in Public History from the State University of New York at Albany.

Chris has spent his career interpreting and preserving American military history with the National Park Service, New York State government, the Rensselaer County (NY) Historical Society, the Civil War Preservation Trust, Kentucky State Parks, the U.S. Army, and the MacArthur Memorial. He has written and spoken extensively on various aspects of military history and leadership from 1775 to the present, and was the inaugural Director of the General George Patton Museum and Center of Leadership at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Chris has published three books on the Civil War and three on World War II in the Pacific. He is a reviewer and contributor to the Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Consortium of Indo-Pacific Researchers. His latest book, titled Tenth Army Commander, is about General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., who was killed in battle on Okinawa in 1945.

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