“The American Civil War - Beyond the Battles” returns this fall quarter to South Seattle Community College’s Continuing Education Curriculum.

In an expanded, eight-session version of last year’s course, classes will be held over an eight-week period beginning Tuesday, October 5th from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. The following is an abbreviated class description list:

Session 1: Ante Bellum Years - The Seeds of Dissension - Washington & Jefferson – Dred Scott Case - Political, Social & Economic Divisions – Lincoln’s Inaugural - Secession of the Lower South - a House Divided

Session 2: On the Eve of Destruction – Civil Discourse Ends – April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter – Lincoln’s a Call to Arms

Session 3: Prelude to the Western Campaign – Shiloh, the Western Rivers & Beyond

Session 4: Pressure for Emancipation - Impact of the Underground Railroad

Session 5: 1863, the Fulcrum Year - the Emancipation Proclamation Becomes Effective

Session 6: Chickamauga, Chattanooga & the Battle Above the Clouds, the Confederacy’s Last Gasp in the West

Session 7: Sherman’s Campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta – Sherman’s Capture of Atlanta Assures Lincoln a Second term

Session 8: Grant’s Grinding Siege of Petersburg – Richmond Abandoned by Confederate Government – Gordon’s Last Attempt to Break Out – Appomattox and the End –Surrender – Lincoln’s 2nd Inauguration – Phases of Reconstruction – The Assassination and Aftermath.

The instructor, Pete Mazza, brings a 40-year avocation with history of the Civil War to the classroom. He is an authority on the conflict that took the lives of over 600,000 Americans and ended some 100 years prior to the Voting Rights Act.

“The best thing I can do instead of regurgitating battles is to try to mine and weave together how these battles were indications of the economic, social and political fabric of the times and what it came to be as times went on,” said Mazza, 69, who retired from banking, insurance and investing at Mazza Financial.

He attended Dickenson College, just 30 miles from the Battle of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, which he said helped fuel his interest in the Civil War. We still have a lot of questions about that time and what it meant in the metamorphosis of the country. It is still compelling, the fulcrum event in American History.”

Mazza has also conducted the course over the last several years at the Lifetime Learning Center of Seattle and more recently at the Lake Forest Park Campus of Shoreline Community College. He will be offering the course this fall and winter at Edmonds Community College and at Seattle’s Horizon House Retirement Community. Students taking the class will gain a colorful insight into the origins of the conflict that date back to the time of Washington and Jefferson.

To register for the class, contact the Continuing Education Department at SSCC: (206) 764-5339

Email: southced@sccd.ctc.edu
Website: www.learnatsouth.org