On Thursday, October 17, at 7 p.m. award-winning author Gail Stephens visited Crawfordsville to discuss the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln as part of the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum’s ongoing Dr. Howard Miller Lecture Series. Lew Wallace and the Lincoln Assassination Lew Wallace was a member of the […]
Lew Wallace
On Thursday, September 12, Dr. Howard Miller returned to discuss “A World in Motion: Travelers and Tourists in Ben-Hur” on September 12, 2019. His talk was at 7 p.m. in the Carriage House Interpretive Center. Travelers and Tourists in Ben-Hur Throughout 2017 and 2018, Dr. Miller delivered a series of […]
This year in our exhibit we are talking about all of the places Lew and Susan traveled during their lives. Lew did much of his early travel during the Mexican War and the Civil War. Today I want to talk about his time in Maryland during the Civil War. Maryland […]
“Lew Wallace’s Career as a Criminal Lawyer” is the topic of our next video in the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum’s Dr. Howard Miller Lecture Series. Criminal Lawyer Lew Wallace passed the bar exam in the late 1840s and immediately began his legal career. It was not a career […]
Visitors often ask if Lew Wallace knew Abraham Lincoln. The answer, of course, is yes, though Lew’s brother-in-law Henry S. Lane was likely closer to Lincoln. Lew and Lincoln had a lot in common. They both spent their boyhoods in rural parts of Indiana along the Wabash River. They both […]
Lew Wallace’s 1881 appointment as US Minister to the Ottoman Empire provided him with many opportunities to travel in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Today I’ll be focusing on the Wallaces’ travels in Europe. Traveling to Europe On their way to the Ottoman Empire, Lew and Susan arrived at Queenstown, Ireland, […]
Soon after his arrival in the Middle East, Lew Wallace helped Jews fleeing to Syria from the pogroms of Russia and Romania. Officials of the Ottoman Empire did not welcome these poor refugees. However, Lew used his friendship with the Sultan to obtain a reprieve for the refugees. He also […]
Lew Wallace’s most widely remembered military exploits were the result of his participation in the Civil War. However, his interest in the military predated his Civil War experiences by many decades. His participation in the Mexican War began a lifelong love of Mexico His father, David, had attended West Point. […]
Dr. Howard Miller joined us on Thursday, May 2 to discuss Victorian travelers and tourists. What, if anything, is the difference between a “traveler” and a “tourist”? Between an “actual” and an “armchair” traveler or tourist? Dr. Miller explains all in his lecture. As it turns out, Lew and Sue […]
James Whitcomb Riley was born in 1849 in Greenfield, Indiana, to Reubin A. and Elizabeth Riley. Like Lew, Riley disliked school but loved to read; he left school at age sixteen. He read law with his father for a time, but apparently had little inclination or talent for it, and […]