Professor Emeritus Milton Harr, Geotechnical Engineering, 1955-1999.

Before retiring in 1998 professor emeritus Milton Harr wrote four textbooks and over 100 technical papers while at Purdue. In July 2006, with the release of his first novel the “The Great Affair,” he can now add historical fiction to his list of accomplishments.

The Great Affair chronicles the life of Joseph Slade, a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point and a Confederate engineering officer who was paroled after the capitulation of Vicksburg, MS. Slade became an active participant in the re-building of Paris during the reign of Napoleon III and was asked to exercise his engineering experience in the modernization of Paris and eventually the Suez Canal. Although the hero Slade is a fictitious character, The Great Affair weaves in brief biographies of some of the real people he meets during his adventures.

Harr first became interested in the Civil War when he began doing consulting work for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg over 50 years ago. “When I first began the job, I knew very little about the Civil War and even less about the siege of Vicksburg. So, I began to do my homework and became ‘enchanted’ by the drama of the battle and its consequences,” wrote Harr.