America's Greatest Unknown Author: Rediscovering George Templeton Strong

Scholar Geoff Wisner will lecture on the Civil War diaries of George Templeton Strong, which offer unique insights and first-person encounters with Lincoln, Grant, Stanton, and others—told with Strong’s wicked humor.

Beginning in 1835, at age 15, George Templeton Strong started writing in his diary, which totaled about four million words at his death in 1875. When portions were eventually published, the work was recognized as a literary masterpiece and treasure trove for historians. Geoff Wisner, editor of Library of America’s new George Templeton Strong: Civil War Diaries, reveals how Strong chronicled his Civil War experience with insight and wicked humor. Strong’s diaries provide unique insights on Lincoln, Grant, Stanton, and others, on the devastating draft riots of 1863, and on Strong’s efforts to support the Union as a founder of the US Sanitary Commission and New York’s Union League Club.

Geoff Wisner is an author, editor, and book reviewer based in New York City. His ancestors include a Swiss soldier who arrived at Governors Island in 1710; Henry Wisner, a member of the Second Continental Congress who manufactured gunpowder for George Washington's army; and George W. Wisner, a reporter and editor for the New York Sun from 1833 to 1835.

Wisner's Strong diary edition will be available for sale and signing at the event.

Editor Geoff Wisner. Center and bottom: George Templeton Strong in November 1860 and August 1863.