December 19, 2023

Ulysses S. Grant became a Lieutenant General and Commander of the U.S. Army in 1864. In contemporary eyes, this was a major moment in the war. This talk will examine that appointment, what went into it, and what came of it.

Christopher L. Kolakowski is Director of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, a position he has held since January 6, 2020. He was born and raised in Fredericksburg, Va, but his mother’s family has very deep roots in the Badger State. Chris received his BA in History and Mass Communications from Emory & 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 two on World War II in the Pacific. He is a reviewer and contributor to the Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Consortium of Indo-Pacific Researchers. His latest book, titled Nations in the Balance and released March of 2022, is about the 1944 India-Burma battles.