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.

Books Make Great Holiday Gifts

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Civil War: A Traveler's Guide

As BGES navigated the troubled waters stirred by Coronavirus, we sought to sell 1,000 books to net an estimated $38,000. Pretty aggressive for a group of 400-plus members, but amazingly enough we did sell and ship nearly 400 books—a net of nearly $18,000, and we aren’t quite done. While a Silent Auction of rare collectors … Read more

Book Review: Besieged, Mobile 1865

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      Besieged, Mobile 1865 by Russell W. Blount, Jr. (Pelican Press, 2015), $26.95 In 1861, Union commanding general Winfield Scott articulated the Anaconda Plan, a strategy that would defeat the nascent Confederacy by closing down all its lines of commerce, thereby depriving it of a commercial base. Closing ports of trade would deny … Read more

Reliving 15 Years of BGES Lectures

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Sometimes you instinctively do the right things from the start and then eventually realize what you have done was really important. So it is with BGES’s latest project, The BGES Video Archives. In October 1994 we assembled an all-star team at the Holiday Inn at the Richmond Airport to do a one-day symposium of lectures preceding … Read more

Announcing BGES’s 20th Monograph!

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After a long holiday, BGES is pleased to announce that it has finished editing and submitted for publication its 20th scholarly monograph. The Grand Gulf to Raymond Driving Tour Guide is a content-rich, 96-page publication that reveals the significance of the old historic road that linked the formerly thriving river town of Grand Gulf on the Mississippi River with the … Read more

BGES Updated Mission Statement

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Sheridan and his generals.
The BGES Board of Directors recently undertook the process of evaluating our corporate documents as part of the process of updating our Strategic Plan and the operational parameters of the organization. The mission statement was approved by video conference in late July and is shared here for your consideration. Words mean things, and you can and should read between the lines as this provides the range and limitations of what the BGES will do in its operational mission. Maj. Gen. Bill Terpeluk, US Army Retired, is the head of the BGES Strategic Planning group.

The Blue and Gray Education Society is dedicated to the preservation of the legacy of the American Civil War and related events by the objective study and understanding of its battlefields and other historic sites. It provides engaging platforms through the conduct of field study tours and seminars, collaborative evaluation and publication of scholarly research and writings, sponsorship of interpretative projects, and open discussion of issues relating to the case for preserving its sites and artifacts. Its members and larger community actively promote the value and significance of the role of the American Civil War in the greater perspective of U.S. and world history.

Take another look at our website and see if you can figure out what we are doing and have done. I believe you will find us a very focused and mission-oriented organization, and that is what you are supporting. If you are not a member, you can join at http://www.blueandgrayeducation.org.
—Len Riedel
Executive Director

Len Riedel’s Birthday Challenge

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  Greetings from Chatham! Facebook has been a tremendous asset for the BGES, and I enjoy about 1,000 friends, many of whom are BGES members. At the same time, BGES has a FACEBOOK page that is liked and followed by approximately 1,600 people.  Each year Facebook offers its members the chance to raise money in … Read more

Stepping Up Our Game with Medford

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For more than 20 years, the BGES and the Medford Historical Society (MHS) have collaborated to digitize the priceless Gen. Samuel Crocker Lawrence Photographic Collection owned by MHS. Recently the digitization was completed, and now one of the nation’s premiere 19th-century photographic collections is available to review 24/7 from the privacy of your own home. While … Read more

Book Review: The Last Siege: The Mobile Campaign, Alabama 1865

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The Last Siege, The Mobile Campaign, Alabama 1865 by Paul Brueske (Casemate Press 2018), $32.95 Twenty-three years ago, BGES obtained a ABPP Grant to conduct a Preservation Conference for the Mobile Campaign. Having spent some time to organize, conduct, and write a report, I was fairly familiar with the key sites related to the campaign … Read more

Book Review: The British Are Coming

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      The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777 (the Revolution Trilogy) by Rick Atkinson (Henry Holt Press, 2019) $40. I love a single malt scotch and my favorite is GlenFarclas 105. It is hard to come by and I savor every single drink—I could drink it every day, … Read more