(COLUMBIA, Tenn. – Sept. 27, 2019) - - - Dr. Timothy D. Johnson, Lipscomb University history department chair and professor of history and university research, will present “For Duty and Honor” Oct. 2 at 4 p.m. in the Ledbetter Auditorium.

Johnson will discuss his most recent book, “For Duty and Honor: Tennessee’s Mexican War Experience.” Join Johnson as he examines what the Mexican-American War meant for the Tennessee volunteers.  

Tennessee contributed a huge number of volunteers to the war effort, and Johnson's account not only seeks to describe the military context but also to explore the motivations of Tennessee soldiers.

“There’s much more to Dr. Johnson’s book than the accounts of experiences had by Tennesseans that fought in the Mexican-American War,” said Dr. Barry Gidcomb, Columbia State professor of history. “His book is about Tennessee in the Age of the Common Man when the state was at the zenith of its influence at the national level. The book also speaks to the heart of what it meant to be a Tennessean, and an American, during this critical time in history and, to some extent, what it still means today.”

Johnson earned his doctorate degree from the University of Alabama in 1989, and has published extensively on military history in the antebellum period. He is the author or editor of numerous articles, and six previous books including three on the Mexican-American War. His “Notes of the Mexican War,” “1846-1848,” along with “Memoirs of Lieut. General Winfield Scott,” were published by the University of Tennessee Press. In addition, he has been a research fellow at Yale University and the Virginia Historical Society.

The lecture is free and open to the public. The Ledbetter Auditorium is in the Frank G. Clement Building located on the Columbia Campus at 1665 Hampshire Pike.