April 2025 Southern MD Civil War Round Table Meeting

April 8 , 2025

The Southern Maryland Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that its next meeting will be held Tuesday, April 8, 2025 at 7:00pm at The Maryland Veterans Museum, 11000 Crain Highway North, Newburg, MD 20664.

Guest Speaker:  Sarah Kay Bierle

 

As we prepare for our field trip to the New Market Battlefield, tonight we will be prepped for the trip by Sarah Kay Bierle, who will discuss the New Market Campaign.

The New Market Campaign

How did the armies get to New Market for the battle on May 15, 1864?

What were the objectives of the campaign?

How did the campaign and battle fit into the overall strategic plans for the war in Virginia?

This presentation delves deeper in the New Market Campaign and reexamines its challenges and outcomes beyond the famous battle.

 

Sarah Kay Bierle graduated from Thomas Edison State University with a BA in History, works in the Education Department at American Battlefield Trust, and occasionally writes for Emerging Civil War. She has spent years exploring ways to share quality historical research in ways that will inform and inspire modern audiences, including school presentations, writing, and speaking engagements. Sarah has published three historical fiction books and her first nonfiction book, Call Out The Cadets: The Battle of New Market, is part of the Emerging Civil War Series. She currently has a book under contract with the University of Tennessee Press and a forthcoming biography about Confederate artillerist John Pelham with Savas Beatie

Come on out an get a great preview of the sights and stories we will see and learn about on our trip from Sarah.  Attendance is free as always, but membership is recommended. Please contact us at bsunderland@somdcwrt.org or at 443-975-9142 for more details.

 

Southern MD Civil War Round Table Film Series

March 8, 2016

Come out and join us from 5:10pm – 6:47pm as our series of Civil War movies continues prior to the regularly scheduled Round table meeting tonight.  Movies will be shown at the College of Southern Maryland’s Center for Business and Industry, Chaney Enterprises Conference Center, Room BI-113, at 8730 Mitchell Road in La Plata, MD.  Admission is free!

Tonight’s Feature:  “Field of Lost Shoes

Field of Lost Shoes

Based on a true story, culminating at the Battle of New Market, VA in May 1864, this film follows a group of teenage cadets sheltered from war at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) who confront the horrors of an adult world when called upon to defend the Shenandoah Valley.  Leaving behind their youth, they must decide what they are fighting for.

Starring David Arquette, Keith David, Lauren Holly and Tom Skerritt as General Ulysses S. Grant, the movie starts with Lincoln appointing General Ulysses S. Grant as Chief of Union Forces.  Grant acts decisively, bringing total war to the pristine Shenandoah Valley, the breadbasket of the South.  The superintendent of VMI volunteers 274 young cadets to protect the valley.  They march northward toward the strategic valley choke point of New Market, VA.  On the day of the battle, Confederate General John C. Breckenridge, former Vice President of the Unites States and now commander of southern forces in the Valley, is faced with a horrible decision to order the young and inexperienced cadets into battle.

Please join us after the movie for our regularly scheduled meeting from 7 – 9pm, where Carol Randell will discuss Southern Relief Societies.