ATHS Meeting: Presentation Peggy Oakley…and a PIG…Go to War!

Doris Settles 

B

Bio: From childhood, all Doris Settles wanted to do was write and 73 years on, she has had hundreds of articles published in newspapers, magazines and journals. Author of six books of her own, Settles has had poetry and short works published in three anthologies to date of her own. She taught writing at the University of Kentucky and spent a decade as the Director of the Kentucky School Safety Clearinghouse at UI where she researched and provided training on Internet Safety and Best Practices in Education.  

Presentation:

 Peggy Oakley…and a PIG…Go to War! 

Presentation description: 

While not a single battle of the War of 1812 was fought on Kentucky soil, Kentuckians were involved from beginning to end. Henry Clay and his War Hawks convinced Congress and President Madison to declare war and helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent that ended it. After two massacres of Kentucky militia on the northwestern front, Governor Isaac Shelby (still the only sitting governor to lead troops into battle), more than four thousand locals (including several ancestors of this speaker) and a pig marched to Canada to defeat the British and kill Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames. Author Doris Dearen Settles speaks as her ancestor, Peggy Oakley, and explains how Kentuckians won the War of 1812 and why it is far more significant than textbooks record.