July 28 Ulysses S. Grant

Gettysburg resident Kenneth Serfass, a retired U.S. Marine and living historian, will portray Union Commanding General Ulysses S. Grant. Serfass has portrayed Grant for a History Channel documentary and is the bandmaster for the Antebellum Marine Band.

Ken's bio:

Kenneth J. Serfass, Gunnery Sgt USMC, retired

(Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant)

Gunnery Sgt Kenneth J. Serfass was born in Bethlehem, PA on June 18th, 1966. He joined the USMC in 1984 and his final tour was with the First Marine Division Band during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After a 20 year career as a US Marine bandsman, he settled in San Diego California to raise his daughter.

Since retiring in 2004, he has been very active as a tubist and conductor of varied community bands and also a music educator spanning grade levels from K through college level.

Ken has been an active civil war reenactor and impressionist since his boyhood in Pennsylvania, and from his forty years of study of his self-avowed childhood hero US Grant, he has created a niche as a full time professional living historian portraying Ulysses S. Grant. His adventures and travel as US Grant are documented on the Facebook page, “US Grant in living history” and through "Linked In", an internet networking site.

Ken has been appearing publicly as General Grant since 2009, performing in a History channel production in 2010, “Lee & Grant” , in 2013 for an HBO series, “Family Tree” in an episode set at a reenactment along with a Time Warner Cable commercial which played nationwide after Superbowl Sunday, 2014.

Currently he speaks at events across the country and has visited the major areas of Grant’s military campaigns in Virginia and Mississippi. He has participated in the Remembrance Day parades for the past three Novembers in Gettysburg. These appearances have led to opportunities for him to present the general in walking tours, horseback tours, train rides at "Steam Into History" and at various living history and roundtable events on a regular basis across most of the north east and along the west coast with events at Pamplin Park and Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

It is with a profound honor that he tells the story of one of America’s greatest military leaders and Ken takes it very seriously to reaffirm Grant’s place of honor among the most respected people of our nation’s history.