1 - 2012 - Blue and Gray Education Society

Campaign and Battle of Lynchburg, Virginia

July 25, 2025January 26, 2012 by John Johnson

[box]by Charles M. Blackford Warwick House Publishing, Lynchburg, Reprint 1994 Reviewed by Len Riedel, Executive Director, BGES Danville, Virginia January 25, 2012[/box] Charles M. Blackford was a distinguished citizen of Lynchburg who served in the Army of Northern Virginia; however, he did not participate in the battle or campaign of Lynchburg. A highly regarded speaker … Read more

Civil War Maps by Hal Jespersen

July 25, 2025January 21, 2012 by John Johnson

Jackson's Valley Campaign, May 21 - June 9, 1862

Hal Jespersen, a long-time BGES member and retired computer industry executive, has created over 200 free maps illustrating Civil War campaigns and battles for Wikipedia. Hal recently started offering his mapmaking skills to historians for commercial use, and in 2011 completed eight projects for publication. In 2012, BGES has commissioned Hal to produce a series … Read more

Sustaining Southern Identity: Douglas Southall Freeman and Memory in the Modern South

July 25, 2025January 16, 2012 by John Johnson

If you think you are up to the mental challenge or you just want to get to know a great historian and a legendary American this book will reward you. It is not a casual read; but it is an important intellectual destination for people who expect and want more from history.

The Life and Wars of Gideon J. Pillow

July 25, 2025January 4, 2012 by John Johnson

[box]By Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes Jr. and Roy P. Stonesifer Jr.
University of North Carolina Press, 1993
Reviewed by Len Riedel, Executive Director, BGES
January 3, 2012, Myrtle Beach, SC[/box]

Gideon Pillow, yes I know the name, he was that guy who skulked away with John B. Floyd at Dover Tennessee and left the fate of the Confederate troops stationed at Fort Donelson to Simon B. Buckner and US Grant—a political general and the worst kind of pretender, totally without merit. Yes that is the name I knew until I read Hughes and Stonesifer’s book. So little interest did I have in Pillow that I acquired the book and had Hughes autograph it in January 1996 — I finally read it 16 years later. That was my misfortune.