Please note: Optional Dinner will start at 6:00 PM. The Lecture will start at 7:00 PM. To make dinner reservations, email CvilleCWRT@gmail.com and indicate your entree choice: beef, salmon or chicken. Dinner includes salad and dessert. Cost is $24 for members and $30 for non-members.

LECTURE TOPIC: Award-winning journalist Dean Calbreath will discuss the subject of his book "The Sergeant," the true story of an African-born Union sergeant in the Civil War. Sergeant Nicholas Said was born Mohammed Ali ben Said, the son of a cavalry general in the thousand-year-old kingdom of Borno in central Africa. After being captured by Tuareg raiders in his early teens, he was sold into slavry before being purchased and freed by the Russian ambassador to Istanbul. HIs travels in the 1850's ultimately took him to the U.S. on the eve of the Civil War. After joining the Union Army, he served in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. 

SPEAKER BIO: Dean Calbreath's journalism career started at the University of California. He worked for several newspapers and magazines including The Prague Post (Czech Republic), the European edition of The Wall Street Journal, The San Diego Union-Tribune and The San Diego Daily Transcript. He partnered with two other journalists to investigate the suspected corruption of a California Congressman in 2005. The team won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting, which led to that Congressman's conviction on corruption charges, along with three of his associates. Calbreath's second book is "The Sergeant: The Incredible Life of Nicholas Said: Son of an African General, Slave of the Ottomans, Free Man under the Tsars, and Hero of the Union Army."