April 8, 2014

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its next meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 at 7:00pm at the College of Southern Maryland’s Center for Business and Industry, Chaney Enterprise Conference Room BI-113, 8730 Mitchell Road, LaPlata, MD.

Guest Speaker:  Phillip Greenwalt

In preparation for our field trip on April 26,2014 to the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Battlefields, please join the Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table as we welcome our tour guide; Phillip Greenwalt.  Mr. Greenwalt will give us an overview of the sites, sounds and events from the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House Battlefields in May 1864, that we will visit in person on the 26th.   These battles mark the first encounters with the Army of Northern Virginia by the Army of the Potomac under the command of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.  Among the areas to be discussed will be the fighting at Saunders Field, the Widow Tapp Field and the Orange Plank Road in the Wilderness and the “Bloody Angle” at Spotsylvania. These two battles set the stage for what would become known as the Overland Campaign and the desperate struggle between Grant, Lee and their armies.

Phillip Greenwalt is currently a historian with the National Park Service at the George Washington National Monument and the Thomas Stone National Historic Site. He began his National Park Service career as a historical interpreter intern at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.  Mr. Greenwalt holds a bachelor degree in history from Wheeling Jesuit University and a graduate degree in American History from George Mason University.

His first publication, co-authored with Dan Davis, entitled “Bloody Autumn, The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864″, part of the Emerging Civil War Series was published by Savas Beatie LLC in November 2013. Mr. Greenwalt’s second book, also co-authored with Dan Davis, entitled “Hurricane From the Heavens,  The Battle of  Cold Harbor”, is due out in June 2014.  He is also a full-time contributor to the blog, Emerging Civil War  (www.emergingcivilwar.com) and has spoken at lecture series and history round tables in numerous states.

Whether you plan on joining us on the bus on April 26th or just want to learn a little more about the first battles of the Overland Campaign as their 150th anniversary approach, plan to come out and hear Phillip Greenwalt.