April 2023 Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table Meeting

April 11, 2023

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its next meeting will be held Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 7:00pm at The Maryland Veterans Museum, 11000 Crain Highway North, Newburg, MD 20664.

Guest Speaker: Dr. Bradley Gottfried

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to welcome its founder back to discuss his latest book, Lee Invades the North: A Comparison of the Antietam and Gettysburg Campaigns.

Robert E. Lee embarked on two major invasions of the north in 1862 and 1863 that culminated in the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg. While each has been extensively studied, there have been few (to none) comprehensive comparisons of the two. In this presentation, Brad Gottfried will compare and contrast the two campaigns that began with such promise for the Army of Northern Virginia. The presentation will cover the political climate, war effort, the armies, leadership, military intelligence, routes to the battlefield, preliminary encounters, battlefield terrain, the battles, and post-campaign events. Gottfried will have copies of his new book: Lee Invades the North: A Comparison of the Antietam and Gettysburg Campaigns available for sale.

Brad Gottfried was born and raised in Philadelphia and after receiving his Ph.D. in Zoology, he embarked on a 40-year career in higher education. He retired in 2017 as the President of the College of Southern Maryland. He has written 17 books and numerous magazine articles pertaining to the Civil War. Although perhaps best known for his campaign “map books,” he has also written on Gettysburg, the Point Lookout Prisoner of War Camp, and the Hope Antietam paintings. Brad is an Antietam Certified Battlefield Guide and a Gettysburg Licensed Town Guide. He is married to his wife, Linda, and they have four children and four grandchildren.

Attendance is free, but membership is encouraged. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org.

February 8, 2022January 11, 2022

March 2022 Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table Meeting

March 8, 2022

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its next meeting will be held Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 7:00pm at The Maryland Veterans Museum, 11000 Crain Highway North, Newburg, MD 20664.

Due to Charles County Board of County Commissioner updated mandates, masks will be required for all in attendance. Seating will be limited to 4 people per table. Thank you for your support and understanding.

Guest Speaker: Dr. Bradley Gottfried

Join us as we welcome our first Past President and cherished friend as he and his wife Linda share with us some of the stories behind the creation of the Soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg, PA

Most visitors to the National Cemetery at Gettysburg are unaware of its difficult birth. Many steps were required to bring the idea to fruition, from the decision to form the cemetery to its dedication. This presentation highlights the single-minded activities of several men who made it happen. From Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin, to William Saunders who created the cemetery’s plan, to Ward Lamon who planned the consecration ceremony, to Basil Biggs who helped dig up the corpses so they could be moved to the National Cemetery– all toiled to bring the cemetery to life. But one person towers above the others: David Wills, who played a major role during each phase. Lincoln also played a role and his story is one of sadness, fortitude, and mystery. The story of his visit is the stuff of legends.

Brad and Linda Gottfried will use a powerpoint presentation to illustrate the cemetery’s formation.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or at 443-975-9142. We look forward to seeing you!

June 8, 2021May 4, 2021

July 2021 Southern MD Civil War Round Table Meeting

July 13, 2021

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its 2nd Summer Series speaker will take place virtually on Tuesday, July 13, 2021 at 7:00pm from your computer. Due to continuing concerns over the COVID 19 virus and in the interest of member health and safety, we are moving our meeting on line for the immediate future. Members should be checking their email for directions on how to connect to the meeting on July 13, 2021 at 7pm. Not a member! Please reach out to us at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org to learn how to become a member.

Guest Speaker: Daniel Welch

How Did They Get Here: The Gettysburg Campaign— Follow the Union and Confederate armies northward across Virginia, Maryland, and into Pennsylvania during the weeks leading up to the battle of Gettysburg and examine the many battles and events that impacted both before the first shot of July 1, 1863. Drawn from his book, The Last Road North, Mr. Welch will answer questions about how the armies came to be in the positions they were as the Battle of Gettysburg opened, why Gen. J.E.B. Stuart was “late” and what various units were doing as the made there way north.

Gettysburg: How Did They Get Here? | Emerging Civil War

Dan Welch is currently a primary and secondary educator with a public school district in northeast Ohio. Previously, he was the Education Programs Coordinator for the Gettysburg Foundation, the non-profit partner of Gettysburg National Military Park. Dan continues to serve as a seasonal Park Ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park. He has received his BA in Instrumental Music Education from Youngstown State University and a MA in Military History with a Civil War Era concentration at American Military University. He has been a contributing member at Emerging Civil War for over six years and is the co-author of The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign, 1863. He resides with his wife, Sarah, and three Labrador retrievers in Boardman, Ohio.

Please come out and join us as we add to our knowledge of the Battle of Gettysburg and the events preceding it. Attendance is free, but membership is recommended. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or at 443-975-9142. We look forward to seeing you!

May 11, 2021May 4, 2021

June 2021 Southern MD Civil War Round Table Meeting

June 8, 2021

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce a special “Summer Series” of speakers, beginning tonight, June 8, 2021,virtually from your computer. Due to continuing concerns over the COVID 19 virus and in the interest of member health and safety, we are moving our meeting on line for the immediate future. Members should be checking their email for directions on how to connect to the meeting on June 8, 2021 at 7pm. Not a member! Please reach out to us at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org to learn how to become a member.

Guest Speaker: Brian Jordan

We welcome Dr. Brian Jordan as our first Summer Series speaker. Dr. Jordan will speak to us about his most recent book. A Thousand May Fall attempts an intimate, absorbing chronicle of the Civil War from the ordinary soldier’s perspective. At the heart of the book is the 107th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. The unit saw service in two defining battles–Chancellorsville and Gettysburg–each time in the thick of the killing. But the men of the 107th were not lauded as heroes for their bravery and their suffering. Most of them were ethnic Germans, set apart by language and identity, and their loyalties were regularly questioned by a nativist Northern press. In the course of its service, the 107th Ohio was decimated five times over. Yet even as they endured the horrible extremes of war, the Ohioans contemplated the deeper meanings of the conflict at every turn―from personal questions of citizenship and belonging to the overriding matter of slavery and emancipation. Based on prodigious new research, including diaries, letters,and unpublished memoirs, A Thousand May Fall restores the common man and immigrant striver to the center of the Civil War narrative.

https://images.randomhouse.com/cover/9781631495144

Brian Matthew Jordan is Associate Professor of Civil War History and Chair of the History Department at Sam Houston State University. A cultural and military historian of the Civil War and its long aftermath, he is the author or editor of four books on the conflict, including Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War, which was one of three finalists (runners-up) for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History. His more than 120 articles, reviews, and essays have appeared in a bevy of scholarly journals and popular magazines. He has contributed chapters to a number of scholarly anthologies. Since 2014, he has served as Book Review Editor for The Civil War Monitor. Dr. Jordan earned his Ph.D. at Yale, where his dissertation earned the George Washington Egleston Prize (for Best U.S. History Dissertation at Yale) and the John Addison Porter Prize. He is currently at work on a major history of the Civil War era for Liveright/W.W. Norton. His most recent book, A Thousand May Fall: Life, Death, and Survival in the Union Army, was a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Please join us as we learn about a different perspective of the soldier’s life and perseverance during a critical time in the Civil War. Attendance is free, but membership is recommended. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or at 443-975-9142. We look forward to seeing you!

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021

April 2021 Southern MD Civil War Round Table Meeting

April 13 , 2021

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its April meeting will take place virtually on Tuesday, April 13, 2021 at 7:00pm from your computer. Due to continuing concerns over the COVID 19 virus and in the interest of member health and safety, we are moving our meeting on line for the immediate future. Members should be checking their email for directions on how to connect to the meeting on April 13, 2021 at 7pm. Not a member! Please reach out to us at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org to learn how to become a member.

Guest Speaker: Phillip Greenwalt

We welcome back our good friend Phillip Greenwalt, who led us on our April 2014 trip to the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House National Battlefields. Tonight he returns to speak to us about the Florida Brigade and its service in the Gettysburg Campaign.

Florida infantry image - American Civil War: Brothers vs ...

The smallest brigade in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Gettysburg Campaign was the “Florida Brigade” which consisted of three regiments totaling approximately 770 men when Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863. Fitting, as the smallest, in population size, of the seceded states, was Florida itself. Yet, these three regiments; the 2nd, 5th, and 8th Florida were asked to do a herculean task on two of the days of the engagement. Due to their paltry numbers and afterward limited primary sources their history has largely been overshadowed. Read William Faulkner’s famous excerpt on Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg from his 1948 book Intruder in the Dust. He mentions Armistead, Kemper, Garnett, and even Wilcox. No mention of Col. David Lang or the Floridians.

State of Florida Monument (Gettysburg) - CivilWarWiki

Walk the Union line near the now famous Copse of Trees on Cemetery Ridge and you see a dated map on one of the markers. Shows the routes taken by Pickett, Pettigrew, Trimble, and Wilcox. No mention of Lang or the Floridians. Took a century from the conclusion of that disastrous charge of July 3^rd for a monument to be dedicated to the Floridians who sacrificed so much on two of the three days of carnage that marked the Battle of Gettysburg. Until then, besides the Perry Brigade markers, no mention of Lang or the Floridians. Their role in the engagement has been marginalized and distorted. Their heroism and determination in two assaults across open ground questioned and slandered. What these three regiments attempted, with already depleted ranks, was amazing and due for more recognition than the history of the battle has afforded them. The talk at the Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table for April 2021 will focus on the Florida Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign.

Phillip S. Greenwalt is the co-founder of Emerging Revolutionary War and a full-time historian with Emerging Civil War. He is the author or co-author of five books on the American Revolution and American Civil Wars. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Wheeling Jesuit University and a graduate degree in American history from George Mason University. He is a 13-year veteran of the National Park Service. But, most importantly he is a native Baltimorean and still admits to being a die-hard Baltimore Orioles fan.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or at 443-975-9142. We look forward to seeing you!

January 24, 2021

February 2021 Southern MD Civil War Round Table Meeting

February 9 , 2021

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its February meeting will take place virtually on Tuesday February 9, 2021 at 7:00pm from your computer. Due to continuing concerns over the COVID 19 virus and in the interest of member health and safety, we are moving our meeting on line for the immediate future. Members should be checking their email for directions on how to connect to the meeting on February 9, 2021 at 7pm. Not a member! Please reach out to us at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org to learn how to become a member.

Guest Speaker: Ron Kirkwood

Ron Kirkwood is the author of “Too Much for Human Endurance: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.” The book was published by Savas Beatie in hardcover in June 2019 and went into its second printing in October 2019. It came out in paperback in January 2021 and an audio version will be released in February.

Kirkwood argues in “Too Much for Human Endurance” that the George Spangler farm was the most important farm in the Battle of Gettysburg, revealing factors that have long been overlooked. The book also presents newly found information about Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead’s time at the XI Corps hospital at Spangler, the Granite Schoolhouse hospital, the Spanglers, the Artillery Reserve and stories of the suffering and heroism of the surgeons, nurses, wounded and mortally wounded at the two hospitals on the Spanglers’ land.

Kirkwood is retired after a 40-year career as an editor and writer in newspapers and magazines including USA TODAY, the Baltimore Sun, the Harrisburg Patriot-News and the York (PA) Daily Record. He edited national magazines for USA TODAY Sports and was National Football League editor for USA TODAY Sports Weekly. He managed the copy desk in Harrisburg when the newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize in 2012. Kirkwood is a Michigan native and graduate of Central Michigan University, where he has returned as guest speaker to journalism classes as part of the school’s Hearst Visiting Professionals series.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or at 443-975-9142. We look forward to seeing you!

November 15, 2020

December 2020 Southern MD Civil War Round Table Meeting

December 8, 2020

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its October meeting will take place virtually on Tuesday December 8, 2020 at 7:00pm from your computer. Due to continuing concerns over the COVID 19 virus and in the interest of member health and safety, we are moving our meeting on line for the immediate future. Members should be checking their email for directions on how to connect to the meeting on December 8, 2020 at 7pm. Not a member! Please reach out to us at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org to learn how to become a member.

Guest Speaker: Dr. Bradley Gottfried

Tonight we welcome back our founder, first past president and dear friend, Dr. Bradley Gottfried.

Brad will present an overview of his new book, The Maps of the Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign.

The mounted arm of each army played a major role during the Gettysburg Campaign. Alfred Pleasonton’s army was tasked with determining whether Lee’s army was slipping out of its defensive line south of the Rappahannock River and moving north. Worried about an enemy cavalry raid, Army of the Potomac commander, Joseph Hooker, ordered Pleasonton to preemptively strike Jeb Stuart’s cavalry at Brandy Station in what became the largest cavalry fight of the war. Hooker subsequently needed to determine what Lee was doing in the Shenandoah Valley, so he sent Pleasonton cavalry to force their way through the gaps. Stuart’s men stood in the way, resulting in a series of fights just east of the mountains.

After blunting these attempts, Stuart requested and received permission to conduct another raid into Union territory. The quest yielded little and deprived Lee of the eyes and ears he needed as he guided his Army of Northern Virginia northward toward Gettysburg. The two cavalry forces fought at Westminster, Hanover, and Hunterstown. Stuart also took on Union militia at Carlisle.

While Stuart was roaming the countryside, Union infantry was in hot pursuit. Some Pleasonton’s units also screened the Union army as it moved north. After Stuart ascertained Lee’s location, he was forced to fight a pitched cavalry battle northeast of Gettysburg on July 3. That same day, Union cavalry unsuccessfully attacked Lee’s right flank, and the 6th U. S. Cavalry was thrashed at Fairfield.

The two cavalry forces battled after Gettysburg: first over the long Confederate wagon trains and then in support of each army.

The presentation will be illustrated using a series of maps that are part of The Maps of the Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or at 443-975-9142. We look forward to seeing you!

September 9, 2020September 9, 2020

October 2020 Southern MD Civil War Round Table Meeting

October 13, 2020

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its October meeting will take place virtually on Tuesday October 13, 2020 at 7:00pm from your computer. Due to continuing concerns over the COVID 19 virus and in the interest of member health and safety, we are moving our meeting on line for the immediate future. Members should be checking their email for directions on how to connect to the meeting on October 13, 2020 at 7pm. Not a member! Please reach out to us at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org to learn how to become a member.

Guest Speaker: Cory Pfarr

“Longstreet at Gettysburg: The Allure and Endurance of the ‘Lee Intended’ Arguments”

Join us this evening as Cory Pfarr presents a unique analysis of Confederate General James Longstreet’s Gettysburg performance by way of exploring: 1) Some of Robert E. Lee’s actual intentions for his “Old Warhorse” at Gettysburg; 2) Some things Lee clearly intended for but because of events and circumstances did not happen; and, 3) False intentions, attributed to Lee in many Gettysburg studies since the battle, but ultimately unsupported by the primary source record.

Cory M. Pfarr works for the Department of Defense and is an American History author whose main interests span America’s Revolutionary to Civil War years. He is the author of Longstreet at Gettysburg: A Critical Reassessment (McFarland Publishers, 2019) and “John Quincy Adams’s Republicanism: ‘A Thousand Obstacles Apparently Stand Before Us'” (Massachusetts Historical Society, 2014). He is an associate editor for North & South Magazine, a member of the Society for History in the Federal Government, has written articles for North & South Magazine and Gettysburg Magazine, and appeared on the Pennsylvania Cable Network and C-SPAN American History TV. He lives in Fallston, Maryland with his wife and three kids.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or at 443-975-9142. We look forward to seeing you!

January 9, 2018

February 2018 Southern MD Civil War Round Table Meeting

February 13, 2018

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its next meeting will take place on Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 7:00pm at the College of Southern Maryland’s Center for Business & Industry, Chaney Enterprises Conference Room, BI-113, at 8730 Mitchell Road in La Plata, MD.

Guest Speaker: David R. Craig

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round table is pleased to welcome back for Hartford County executive David Craig. For those that enjoyed his October 2014 presentation the the Round Table about Maryland Confederate Brigadier General James Archer, you shall certainly enjoy tonight’s presentation on his latest book “Greetings from Gettysburg”.

Mr. Craig will discuss with us this evening the Battle of Gettysburg, its creation and change as a National Battlefield Park, how his book could help one tour the Gettysburg National Battlefield or remember a time when they did and the vintage post cards he used in the writing of this book.

David Craig attended Havre de Grace High School and was a History major at Towson State College (BS), and Morgan State University (Master’s Degree). Married to Melinda Lee (Blevins) Craig for 45 years. Teacher at Harford County Public School (Middle School) for 15 years and assistant principal for 19 years. Havre de Grace City Councilman five years, Council President one year, Mayor 9 years, State Delegate one term, State Senator one term, Harford County Executive 10 years (2 1/2 terms–longest serving in the county. State Secretary of Planning for Governor Hogan for 1 1/2 years and currently Executive Director of the MD WWICC. Member of the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War (Baltimore) due to my great-grandfather Robert Craig who was in the 2nd Battery, Maryland Light Artillery, USA. Also a soccer coach for 25 seasons. Currently “Pop Pop” of eight grandchildren (father of three).

Please come out and help us welcome back David Craig. Attendance is free for all, but membership is recommended. For information, contact the Round Table’s president, Ben Sunderland, at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or 443-975-9142.