This month’s BGES Member Making a Difference features Brian Mattingly, who is also a member of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation (SVBF). Brian has commissioned artist Keith Rocco to depict a lesser-known aspect of the Battle of New Market, which features the VMI cadets manning two artillery pieces. A limited-edition canvas of the painting will be … Read more
Articles of War: Winners, Losers, and Some Who Were Both in the Civil War By Albert Castel (Stackpole Books, 2001, 244 pages) With a personal library of more than 5,000 books, I have more books than I will ever read in my life. And so, in selecting “unread” books, I went to my various … Read more
In the retelling of the Civil War, Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas pales in the shadows of Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and other famous leaders, and yet this mighty Union general played a pivotal role in shaping the war west of the Appalachians. Born into a slave-holding Virginia family, Thomas attended West Point, … Read more
The Road to Appomattox By Bell Irvin Wiley (Memphis State College Press, 1956) A legend in the Civil War historical community, Bell Wiley was noted for his two seminal studies of the common soldiers of the Confederacy and Union: The Life of Johnny Reb was published in 1943 in the midst of World War 2, and The … Read more