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: 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

Len’s Book Review: The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History

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The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History Edited by Alan Nolan and Gary Gallagher (Indiana University Press, 2000); 231 pages   Twenty years ago, I picked up this book and read it. It was less than a year after 9/11, and knowing the dust-up between Nolan and Lee defenders after Alan’s controversial … Read more

Len’s Book Review: Anti-Slavery Addresses of 1844 and 1845

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No star rating Anti-Slavery Addresses of 1844 and 1845 By Salmon Portland Chase and Charles Dexter Cleveland  (Sampson, Low, Son and Marston, 1867; reprinted by Negro Universities Press, 1969) By Len Riedel A few weeks ago, I finished a book from my African American shelf intending to roll it into July. But then, having also … Read more