Great Photography Hunt: The Results Are In!

The first month of the Great Photography Hunt has passed with five featured photographs, one released each Wednesday morning at 7 AM, having been circulated. We will summarize each month giving those who participated feedback and those who did not encouragement to join the fun. Let’s open with what the Hunt is and what it … Read more

Travel Guide: Enjoy Civil War Experiences from Home

Maybe we can’t go visit Civil War sites right now, but there’s an excellent Plan B: Experiences from home. A slew of virtual tours, online galleries, and interactive experiences helps us to explore some of the war’s most famous, and lesser known, sites. And even when things get back to normal, these will still be … Read more

BGES Members Making a Difference: Bill McKinnon

Simone de Beauvoir, the noted French philosopher and activist, once said, “History is a great cemetery.” But you could just as easily argue the opposite, that a cemetery is great history. BGES member and retired surgeon Bill McKinnon certainly sees it that way. For more than two decades, he has made it his mission to … Read more

BGES Projects: Always Loyal, Never Forgotten

Over the past 26 years, BGES has completed some significant educational enhancements that stand in their own right as exceptional. However, a less heralded characteristic of the organization is its commitment to maintain whatever it does. If it has a BGES logo on it, it will be and is maintained. Pamplin Historical Park The latest … Read more

Creating a Philanthropic Pandemic

I am tired of talking about viruses and germs—aren’t you? What I would like to talk about is a really well-conceived, worldwide, coordinated effort to help the countless nonprofit groups around the world. GivingTuesday started in 2012, and since then has rallied increasing numbers of charities to work with their supporters to shore up fundraising efforts … Read more

Tour Talk: On Sacred Grounds, with Neil Mangum

If timing is everything in life, then perhaps it’s no surprise that the Indian Wars are so often overlooked in the annals of U.S. history. Wedged between the close of the Civil War and Custer’s last stand at Little Bighorn, this fascinating 10-year period saw awful bloodshed throughout the Northwest as white settlers tested the … Read more

How to Save A Battlefield, with Art Taylor

A native son of Virginia, born in Richmond “right in the shadow of Jeb Stuart,” Art Taylor was drawn to Confederate lore from an early age. “The Seven Days’ Battle culminated at my ancestor Watt’s house, with third grandmother Sally Watt being carried out as battle began,” he says. A former V-Dot employee, he’s a … Read more

BGES Members Making a Difference: Mike Movius & Civil War Roundtables

A few days before Mike Movius sat down to talk with the BGES Blog, he had cataracts surgery. The prognosis? The procedure was a success, and he is on his way to a full recovery. Movius speaks with similar optimism when it comes to the CWRT Congress and Civil War roundtables. But there is a … Read more

Civil War Women

The Civil War wasn’t just a man’s war. For the first time in American history, women played a significant role in the wartime effort. Women took on jobs beyond their society-mandated ones inside the home, including spy, nurse, and soldier. Clara Barton once claimed that the four-year war advanced the social position of women by … Read more