Len Riedel

Len Riedel is the Executive Director of the BGES and is a retired Air Force officer with a Masters degree in History. He has given numerous talks on various aspects of the war and has planned over 250 different battlefield tours.

Len’s Book Review: The Demon of Unrest

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The Demon of Unrest, A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War.   I read a lot of books and usually find something to criticize in each so that I have never awarded a 5 Star rating until now. I believed it when I finished the book Thanksgiving Day … Read more

Len’s Book Review: A Refugee at Hanover Tavern

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A Refugee at Hanover Tavern: The Civil War Diary of Margaret Wight Edited by Shirley A. Haas and Dale Paige Talley (History Press, 2013); $21.99   During our May Overland Campaign tour with Gordon Rhea, I happened across this book in the Hanover Tavern bookstore. I quickly picked it up, and it crossed my eyes … Read more

Revealing the Pulse of the Nation: National Geographic Magazine Commemorates the Centennial of the Civil War

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I was a seven-year-old boy who had never thrown a baseball, been to a baseball game, nor had Roger Maris hit 61 home runs or the Reds and Yankees tangled in the 1961 World Series. The Centennial commemoration of the American Civil War was underway, and National Geographic magazine, Volume 119, Number 4, dated April … Read more

Help Needed: Dedicated Volunteers Preferred

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BGES thrives on low overhead and the voluntary efforts of members and interested parties to accomplish tasks that are essential to the daily and recurring operations of the organization. Tasks that might require a full- or part-time, paid staff member in a larger group with more monetary throughput become a necessary but occasional task that … Read more

BGES Members Launch Final Assault to “Carry the Position”

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  BGES members have never failed in a challenge, and, like Yorktown, we have systematically besieged our objective, and carefully advanced our parallels in a deliberate fashion, until we have reached the point in which we can breech the British lines in one final rush. The outcome will not be in doubt, provided we carry … Read more

Having Fun While Doing Good at Fort Shaw

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You just never know … Recently, BGES was completing a remarkable tour following the trail of Lewis and Clark from the magnificent Great Falls to the Pacific Coast, and then back again to Great Falls. One of the lower visibility stops was a forgotten and practically abandoned military installation, Fort Robert Gould Shaw (originally Camp … Read more