Emerging Civil War — April 2023

Originally published April 2023 · pp. 30–31

sarahkaybierle for some of the shared photos and local history notes! In the Savas Beattie January Newsletter, Sheritta Bitikofer was named associate editor alongside Gordy Morgan on M. Chris Bryan’s upcoming project with Savas Beattie for The Chancellorsville Papers, Volume 3(ish), a compilation of transcribed letters and recollections about the campaign. Think The Bachelder Papers, but for Chancellorsville. Also check out her latest article on the battle at Natural Bridge, Florida, the battle that “saved Tallahassee,”

News and Notes Sarah Kay Bierle recently spent a day exploring Warrenton, Va. Check her Instagram @

Chris Mackowski Jonathan Noyalas, director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute (and a good Buffalo Bills fan!), graciously offered a tour of the Cool Springs battlefield. In the background stands “The Retreat,” a home once owned by Judge Richard Parker—the judge who presided over John Brown’s trial.

From the Editor Retreat! Emerging Civil War historians gathered in Winchester, Va., over Presidents’ Day Weekend for our annual retreat. While not everyone could make it in person, those who did were able to explore battlefields, bookstores, and excellent restaurants. On Saturday, we had members from far and wide Zoom in to join those who attended in person for a daylong strategic planning session (our thanks to Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute for hosting us at their Cool Springs Battlefield campus). We’ll have more news to share from the retreat in the coming months. In the meantime, here’s a quick look at some of our fun:

Two of the COVID-delayed ECW Series titles now at the printer as part of the Savas Beatie catch-up.

Jon Tracey (right) with the lean-in to capture colleagues Dwight Hughes, Patrick Kelly-Fischer, and Sarah Kay Bierle at the stone wall in Kernstown.

Tim Talbott, Patrick Kelly-Fischer, and Dwight Hughes tower over a diorama of the Cedar Creek landscape like Godzilla-sized historians.

Jon Tracey (right) with his patented lean-in catches the crew on a Cedar Creek tour. Our usual suspects are joined here by Phill Greenwalt (center), author of the ECW Series book Bloody Autumn: The 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.

in the most recent publication of American Civil War Magazine. On a more personal note, Sheritta has been working hard to get as much of her degree program out of the way before this summer because she’ll have her hands full with a new member of the Bitikofer household. With an estimated due date of July 3, she and her husband are excited to welcome this little one into the world. With some luck, the baby won’t be late to the party like J.E.B Stuart, and they can brag that their first child was born during the 160th anniversary of Gettysburg/Vicksburg. Neil Chatelain has had quite the busy February, including presentations for the Inland Empire Civil War Round Table, the Civil War Round Table of Central Louisiana, and the Louisiana Historical Association. Besides that, he published the article “Ship Island, Mississippi: Versatile Key to the Gulf” in the Winter 2023 issue of Civil War Navy Magazine. Finally, he was presented the 2023 Lone Star College Faculty Writing Award for his paper “Postwar Identity Crisis of the Confederate Navy’s Officer Corps” published in the October 2022 issue of US Military History Review. Bert Dunkerly will be speaking to the Loudon County, VA, Civil War Round Table in mid-March. He is also excited to be going to explore French & Indian War sites next month, his first true love. He’s working on a book project on that. Meg Groeling is getting into the last turn on her ECWS books on Walt Whitman. She has also been enjoying some cemetery walking. She and her husband, Robert, found a tombstone for a USCT soldier. “His family came to Hollister, CA,” she says, “and stuff has been done on the Griswald colony, but nothing has been done about the soldier himself. So thinking that might be the next project.” Steward Henderson, Chris Mackowski, and Kris White offered presentations on Saturday, February 18 for the Chambersburg Civil War Seminar. They each spoke about different aspects of the Overland Campaign. Brian Matthew Jordan published a review of David Prior’s recent collection on Reconstruction and empire in the latest number of the Journal of Southern History. He heads to Emory Upton’s hometown of Batavia, N.Y., to deliver a lecture on March 1 as part of Derek Maxfield’s Historical Horizon’s Lecture Series. Brian will talk about his book Marching Home:

Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War. Derek Maxfield presented to the Hershey, PA, CWRT on Feb. 16 via Zoom about his first book Hellmira: The Union’s Most Infamous Civil War Prison Camp—Elmira, NY (Savas Beatie, 2020). He is not-sopatiently awaiting the release of his new book, Man of Fire: William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War, which has gone to the printer and is expected to be available by mid-March 2023. Chris Kolakowski has been named Chair of the Wisconsin America250 Commission. For details, see this link: https:// wisvetsmuseum.com/ america250/. Chris Mackowski’s book The Battle of Jackson, Mississippi, received an excellent review from The Strategy Page, which is published in conjunction with the New York Military Affairs Symposium. Reviewer Julius Haukser summed up the book thus: “Most authors lift the ‘fog of war,’ the better to make their conclusions; Makowski keeps it in place, which actually results in a greater understanding of what the soldiers and civilians of the time knew and what they did not. I highly recommend this book and his website for any ACW reader.” You can read the review here: https://tinyurl.com/ mrx3a6ma. Mackowski also appeared with co-editor Frank Scaturro for a book talk sponsored by the American Civil War Museum (ACWM). They spoke about their edited essay collection Grant at 2000. You can watch their talk at the ACWM’s YouTube page: https://youtu.be/ZT2iMG9zSTI. Tim Talbott attended the Longwood University/ Appomattox Court House National Historical Park Seminar in Farmville, Va., and the American Civil War Symposium in Richmond. He has also been researching for a two-part post for the ECW blog on African American camp servants who became USCT soldiers. Jon Tracey spoke about Camp Letterman and medical care after the battle of Gettysburg for the Wilmington, Del. CWRT in February. In March, he speaks at the Hampton Roads CWRT on the realities of Civil War medicine. Kris White and Chris Mackowski will head off to Vicksburg, Miss., in early March to film the last episode in a series of virtual fields for K-12 students being produced by the American Battlefield Trust. Previous stops have taken them to Boston, Charleston, and New Orleans. Look for the team to record some

CivilWarNews.com segments for a Trust video swing, too!

ECW Multimedia On the Emerging Civil War Podcast in February: ECW historians Chris Mackowski and Kris White talked about the Civil War history around Mobile, Ala. We caught up with Joe Ewers of the 2nd South Carolina String Band. The boys have been enjoying retirement and yet enjoy more success than ever! We highlighted a new exhibit by historian Nick Sacco at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site that explores the history of slavery in St. Louis and situates Grant and his family in that larger story. We visited with Steve Phan, chief of interpretation at Camp Nelson National Monument in Kentucky, about the road to freedom for former slaves who found their own “new birth of freedom” by enlisting in the U.S.C.T. The Emerging Civil War Podcast is available through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever fine podcasts are available. You can also subscribe to our podcast through Patreon ( h t t p s : / / w w w. p a t r e o n . c o m / emergingcivilwar), where we are now also offering exclusive bonus content for subscribers. For as low as $1.99/month, you can help support ECW. Proceeds go toward defraying the production costs of the podcast. In February for Patreon-only content, we featured a video tour of Charleston’s Liberty Square. On the ECW YouTube page, we hit a number of sites around Mobile, Ala. Chris Mackowski introduced the trip. Kris White talked about the battle of Mobile Bay and Fort Morgan. Mike Bunn, site director at Historic Blakeley State Park, showed us around the battlefield and the new USCT Heritage Trail. Kris White visited Magnolia Cemetery. We also commemorated the campaign for Forts Henry and Donelson with a visit to Fort Henry, a walk along Fort Donelson’s river batteries, and a stop at the Dover Hotel. Plus, Chris Mackowski mailed out a slew of copies of his newest book, Grant at 200, and shared his adventures prepping and mailing the signed editions. Finally, we featured video versions of our podcast interviews with Chris/Kris, Joe Ewers, Nick Sacco, Kevin Levin, and Steve Phan.

The 2022-2023 Emerging Civil War Speakers Bureau If you’re looking for a speaker for your Civil War Roundtable, look no further than the Emerging Civil War Speakers Bureau. Our brochure features all the ECW historians who are available for speaking engagements. You can read their bios and see their lists of talks, complete with descriptions. And as a bonus in this updated edition, ECW co-founder Kris White is back on the circuit. His availability is limited, but if you’re interested, nab him while it’s hot! You can find a copy of our speakers bureau online (and also available for download) at: https://emergingcivilwar.com/ wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ Speakers-Bureau-2022-2023.pdf.

The 2022-2023 ECW Speakers Bureau brochure features the Illinois Monument at Kennesaw Mountain’s “Dead Angle.”

Historian Nick Sacco of Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site.