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.
The usual reason given as to why the North won the Civil War was because of its vast superiority in regard to industrial power, population and financial wealth. Yet despite these overwhelming advantages, the war lasted four long bloody years. The Confederacy survived these years with many victories over Union armies and frequently appeared to be close to wining its independence. The issue of why the North won and the South eventually lost is more complicated than just one side having economic and population advantages over the other. Tonight, Dr. Jarvis will examine the various factors that contributed to the war’s final outcome.
Spotsylvania National Military Park, where he has served in this capacity since May 2007. Mr. Henderson has a life-long interest in the Civil War and is a co-founder of the 23rd Regiment United States Colored Troops, which is affiliated with the John J. Wright Educational and Cultural Center Museum in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Mr. Henderson retired from Sun Trust Bank as a Senior Vice President in the Retail Group of the Greater Washington Region in 2005, after a 35 year career in the financial services field. He attended Howard University, the Institute of Financial Education, the American Bankers Institute and the Consumer Bankers Association Graduate School of Retail Bank Management.
Professor Emeritus from Virginia Tech and author of over 20 books, whose works include “Stonewall Jackson, The Man, The Myth, and The Legend”, “Civil War!”, “America Becomes One Nation”, “General A.P. Hill”, and “Soldiers Blue and Gray”.
speaker for its inaugural meeting. Mr. Knapp is a retired Army Officer, professional balloon pilot serving on the Balloon Federation of America Board, and Civil War Balloon Corps enthusiast. He has owned and operated the modern “ARMY” Balloon since 1993 and shares oral and living history as Thaddeus S. C Lowe, Chief Aeronaut, of the Army of the Potomac’s Balloon Corps. In 2006 Kevin was the co-pilot for the winning team of the America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race flying from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Citra, Florida – 1,478 miles in 60 hours and 45 minutes.
Kevin Knapp’s portrayal of Thaddeus Lowe has been featured at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, by the US National Park Service Civil War Defense of Washington, Fort Ward, and Gaines Mill Battlefield, as well as the cities of Fairfax, Falls Church, Gloucester, Manassas, and Yorktown Virginia’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Committees. He was also a contributor to the History Channel’s “Man, Moment, and Machine’s” segment on Civil War Ballooning called “Lincoln’s Flying Spy Machine.”