Steve Davis: Requiescat in Pace
By Salvatore Cilella · Originally published July-August 2026 · pp. 53
Iwho knew Steve will have many such memories of their own. Requiescat in pace.
first met Steve Davis in 1982. He was the Director of – Gould Hagler Education at the Medical Association of Georgia; I was a new hire, on board as a lobbyist. On my first day he welcomed me to the team and invited me to lunch. I noticed some toy soldiers in his office, and he showed me a file for an article he was preparing on some Georgia physicians and their ancestors who served as Confederate officers. No one who knew Steve would be the slightest bit surprised that my very first encounter with Steve was also an encounter with Civil War history. As I sit here, at my kitchen table, after Jack called with the sad news of Steve’s death, some memories flash into my mind, some bits and pieces from the 44 years in which I was honored to have Steve as a friend. Steve was then book review editor of Blue & Gray magazine. He commissioned me to write a review of a book of letters written by a Federal soldier killed at Fort Fisher. He picked a book he thought I could handle, one that did not require a scholar. I took no offense when he said that. I once saw a reference to Robert E. Lee as the Confederate Commander-in-Chief. This didn’t sound right to me, so I asked Steve. He explained that this was not correct but that Lee was named General-in-Chief late in the war. The next day at work he presented me with a two- or three-page discussion of the history of this (somewhat common) error, written with a fountain pen, in blue ink, on yellow sheets from a legal pad, complete with references and footnotes. I have spoken to others who have this same image of Steve’s writings. Once at the Atlanta Civil War Round Table our trivia master posed what he thought was a difficult question. When Steve and I blurted out the answer, with exactly the same words and in perfect unison, people thought it was staged. It wasn’t. I happened to know the answer, but unlike Steve I could not have answered every other question on the trivia master’s list. Steve loved the Latin language and applied his knowledge in many situations. Yankee soldiers were abdomina caerulea and his wife was mea uxor borea. Over the years I heard Steve speak on numerous occasions. He always enlightened, he always entertained, he always surprised—and he never used a projector. He just spoke, and the spoken word was sufficient. I reviewed two or three of Steve’s books for Civil War News. Once I used a scene from a movie and a baseball analogy to make a point about the book. Steve had no clue about my meaning. He did not seem to know whether the analogy denoted a good thing or a bad thing. I didn’t try to explain, but I assured him it was a good thing. I won’t go on further about my erudite, gentlemanly, eloquent, Latinate and Stephen Davis giving a tour of the Cleburne Cemetery in generous friend. Civil War News readers Jonesboro, Georgia. (Jack W. Melton Jr.)
Photographs from the Original Article
Captions and credits appear in the article text as originally printed.