Gregg Biggs -
12/12/07, "Nathan Bedford Forrest: Napoleonic Cavalryman"
Gregg Biggs is a Civil War author, editor,
researcher and tour guide specializing in the war fought in the western
theater - in particular Sherman's Atlanta campaign, the battle for Fort
Donelson and CSA General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He has held executive positions with
several Civil War Roundtables and preservation and historical societies including
the Western Ohio Civil War Roundtable, the Ohio
Civil War Association, the Clarksville,
TN Civil War Roundtable and the Montgomery County Civil
War Preservation Society and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Center For
the Study of the Civil War in the West at Western Kentucky University.
As an author, Mr. Biggs' Civil War articles have
appeared in Blue & Gray Magazine (where he also served as an
Associate Editor), Civil War Regiments, Citizen's Companion, American Vexillum Magazine
and the Flags
Of The Confederacy website. He has authored or co-authored several
books including the forthcoming, Tattered
Banners: Alabama's Civil War Flags, I Go To Illustrate Georgia: Civil War Flags Of Georgia
Troops and Tennessee's Civil War Flags.
Mr. Biggs has also contributed research to the Civil War works of authors Larry Daniel, Robert
Maberry, Gordon Rhea,
Russell Brown, John Coski, Wiley Sword, John Sexton, Eric Wittenberg and Andrew
Johnson as well as to artists Don Troiani, John Paul Strain and Dale Gallon.
Mr. Biggs has co-lead
tours with Ed
Bearss and Brian Wills and has lead multiple Civil War Roundtables and
military groups on tours of Civil War Atlanta, Fort Donelson as well as
various spots from Cairo, IL. to Clarksville, TN.
George Buss and Timothy
Connors - 09/12/07,
The Lincoln - Douglas Debates
George Buss is a sixth-generation Illinoisan
whose family came to Illinois the same year Abraham Lincoln was elected to
Congress (1847). He is a native of Freeport, Illinois and serves on the
Board of Directors of the Stephen Douglas Association of Chicago (an
organization for which he is also
a past president), the Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin, and the
Lincoln-Douglas Society of Freeport. He is also a charter member of the
Lincoln Forum. Mr. Buss holds degrees from Ball State University and
National-Louis University.
Through nearly twenty years of research on
Lincoln, Douglas, and the politics of the 1850s, Mr. Buss has collected a
considerable library of speeches, letters and documents produced not only by Lincoln and
Douglas, but their contemporaries in both Houses of Congress - material that
forms the foundation for his presentations. He has been appearing as
Abraham Lincoln since 1989, when a friend authored the script, “A Discussion
with President Lincoln and Judge Douglas." Over that time, Mr. Buss
has portrayed Lincoln many times for many audiences, including the Cleveland Civil War
Roundtable back in 2004.
Tim Connors is also a life-long resident of
Freeport where he is Director of Speech and Theatre for the Freeport
Public Schools. Under his direction, Freeport has produced nearly
two-dozen state qualifiers in the annual IHSA Speech Competition, eight State
Finalists, and one State Champion.
Mr. Connors is a graduate of Northern
Illinois University, where he earned both graduate and undergraduate degrees.
He has appeared in nearly 30 community theatre events, directed some twenty
productions and received multiple awards for his work. He is a member of
the Lincoln-Douglas Society and the Stephen A. Douglas Association.
James F. Epperson -
06/13/07, "The
Lincoln-Baldwin Conference"
Jim Epperson, a member of the Ann Arbor Civil
War Roundtable, is a 50-something editor and author with
interests in Civil War history and the sports teams of his alma mater, the
University of Michigan. He currently works for Mathematical Reviews, the
premier mathematics reviewing and abstracting journal in the world. In
previous lives, he was an avid war-gamer and model railroader, activities he
wishes he had more time for now. He indulges an avocational interest in
the American Civil War by maintaining three web sites, two of which have won
several awards:
John C. Fazio -
05/14/08, "The USS Kearsarge v The CSS Alabama"
John C. Fazio has lived for half a century in
the Greater Cleveland area and is currently a resident of Akron. He is
married, with five children, all of whom have left the nest. His wife, Mary,
is retired, after a career in public relations. John plans to join her in
retirement later in 2007 after practicing law for 42 years.
John is a student of history with an emphasis
on European and American history and with an even greater emphasis on the most
defining event in American history, namely the Civil War, or as it is
sometimes called, the War Between the States, and even the War of Northern
Aggression. (It's official title is the War of the Rebellion.) He has been a
member of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable for about 10 years and was its
Vice-President in 2005-2006 and President in 2006-2007. He frequently lectures
on the war and has written numerous articles on the subject, including:
-
Braxton Bragg, A Dour Martinet
-
Eye of the Storm (A review of Robert
Sneden's memoir)
-
Francis and Arabella -- A Love Story
(Francis C. Barlow and his wife, Arabella Griffith Barlow)
-
John and Fanny -- A Love Story (John B.
Gordon and his wife, Fanny Haralson Gordon)
-
Intrepid Mariners (John A. Winslow and
Raphael Semmes; the Kearsarge - Alabama duel)
-
Lincoln's Assassination - The Confederate
Conspiracy
-
The Montana Vigilantes
-
The Turning Point: The Wilderness and
Spotsylvania
-
The Sword Was Mightier Than The Pen
(Wartime correspondence between William T. Sherman and John Bell Hood)
-
The Proclamation That Saved A Nation (The
Emancipation Proclamation)
Harold A. George -
03/14/07, "Custer's Last Stand"
Harold A. George has a collection of nearly
100 books on Custer’s Last Stand and is a member of the Little Bighorn
Association, a national organization that researches and studies the battle.
He has studied the history of the battle for 25 years and has visited the
Montana battlefield many times.
A member of Cleveland Grays, Mr. George has been
a Civil War re-enactor since 1992. He serves as the commanding officer of an
artillery Civil War re-enactment unit, the 9th Ohio Light Artillery. He has
participated in the re-enactments commemorating the 135th and 140th
anniversaries of the Battle of Gettysburg as well as in the filming of the Ted
Turner produced film, “Gettysburg.”
He is the author of Quick Reference Guide
to the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Jim Getty - 04/13/05
, "A Night with the President"
from Gettysburg Consulting
Group
A native of central Illinois, Jim Getty now
resides in historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he portrays the 16th
President in a one-man show during the tourist season. The program has
received the Pennsylvania Travel Excellence Award.
Mr. Getty holds a Master of Music degree from
Illinois Wesleyan University. He taught choral music in St. Charles, Illinois,
Naperville, Illinois, Sandusky, Ohio, and was director of Choral Activities at
The University of Maine. A member of National Speakers Association and
The International Platform Association, Mr. Getty regularly speaks to schools and colleges,
conventions and business meetings.
Having spent years in research of Lincoln and
his contemporaries, Mr. Getty has developed several "first person"
presentations as the President. Participation in National and State Government
festivities are a part of his schedule each year.
Mr. Getty has worked with The Close-Up
Foundation, The Library of Congress, The Smithsonian Seminars and The Corcoran
Gallery. He participates in the leadership Conferences offered by The Tigrett
Corporation. Mr. Getty's voice is that of the President in two A & E
programs: (1) Abraham Lincoln; A Biography, and (2) The Assassination of
President Lincoln. Mr. Getty also portrayed Lincoln in the Turner Television film, "The
Ironclads". The Delta Steamboat Company employs Mr. Getty to
portray President Lincoln on each of their several, annual Civil War
Cruises. For more on Mr. Getty, visit: http://www.gettysbg.com/alincoln.html
Harold Holzer
- 05/11/05, "U.S. Grant, Seen and Heard"
from HaroldHolzer.com
Harold Holzer is one of the country's leading
authorities on the political culture of the Civil War era. A prolific writer
and lecturer, and frequent guest on television, he serves as co-chairman of
the United States Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, appointed by President
Clinton in September 2000, and elected co-chairman in 2001. For a more
complete biography go to: http://www.haroldholzer.com/bio.html
Mr. Holzer has authored, co-authored, and edited 23 books, including:
-
The Lincoln Image (1984); Changing
the Lincoln Image (1985); and The Confederate Image, (1987), all with Mark
E. Neely, Jr. and Gabor S. Boritt;
-
The Lincoln Family Album (1990),
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Civil War in Art (1993), and The Union
Image (2000) with Neely;
-
Lincoln on Democracy (1990) with
Mario M. Cuomo.
-
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1993);
-
Washington and Lincoln Portrayed (1993);
-
Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President
(1993);
-
Witness to War (1996); The Civil War Era
(1996);
-
The Lincoln Mailbag: America Writes to the
President (1998);
-
The Union Preserved (with Daniel Lorello,
1999),
-
The Lincoln Forum: Abraham Lincoln,
Gettysburg, and the Civil War (co-edited with John Y. Simon and William
Pederson, 1999);
-
Lincoln as I Knew Him (1999);
-
Lincoln Seen and Heard (2000);
-
Abraham Lincoln, The Writer (2000, named
to the Children's Literature Choice List, and the Bank Street "Best
Children's Books of the Year");
-
Prang's Civil War: The Complete Battle
Chromos of Louis Prang (2001),
-
State of the Union: New York and the Civil
War (2002);
-
The Lincoln Forum: Rediscovering Abraham
Lincoln (co-edited with John Y. Simon, 2002);
-
The President is Shot! The Assassination
of Abraham Lincoln (2004).
-
Lincoln
At Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President (2004).
In addition, Mr. Holzer has written more than 350
articles for both popular magazines and scholarly journals, including Life
Magazine, American Heritage, Civil War Times, American History Illustrated,
North & South, Blue & Gray, The Chicago Tribune and The New York
Times.
Brian Kowell - 02/13/08, Civil War
Quiz
Brian
has been a student of the Civil War since conception. A tennis major in
college, the Roundtable has been unable to prevent him from continuing to
indulge his fondness for Judson Kilpatrick.
Over
the years, Mr. Kowell has contributed many articles to the Charger and
has made presentations to the Roundtable on several occasions. He is known
for his half-vast knowledge of Civil War horses and those who rode them. Mr.
Kowell has been a member of the Roundtable since 1975, is a past president and
was editor of the Charger for many years. Brian is married and has
five children.
John
F. Marszalek - 10/13/04, "Halleck" (Link to Commander
of All Lincoln's Armies)
from the
Mississippi's Writers Page
Historian John F. Marszalek was born July 5,
1939, in Buffalo, New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Canisius
College in 1961 and a master’s from Notre Dame in 1963. After serving in the
U.S. Army from 1965-67, in which he attained the rank of captain, he returned
to Notre Dame and earned a Ph.D. in 1968. He taught at Canisius College and
Gannon University before joining the faculty at Mississippi State University
in Starkville in 1973, where he was named the William L. Giles Distinguished
Professor in 1994. He has written or edited eleven books of history and
published more than 150 articles over the course of his career.
In 2002 he retired from his faculty position
at Mississippi State, but he continues to work, currently serving as a
consultant for several historical commissions. He is now working on a
biography of the Civil War’s longest serving commanding general, Henry W.
Halleck, which is scheduled for publication in 2004 by Harvard University
Press.
Mr. Marszalek was featured on C-SPAN’s
Booknotes on March 8, 1998, to discuss his book The Petticoat Affair: Manners,
Mutiny and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House.
Publications
-
Court Martial: A Black Man in America. New
York: Scribner, 1972; revised edition published as Assault at West Point
(Collier, 1994).
-
(With Sadye Wier.) A Black Businessman in
White Mississippi, 1886- 1974. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,
1977.
-
(Editor.) The Diary of Miss Emma Holmes,
1861-1866. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
-
Sherman’s Other War: The General and the
Civil War Press. Memphis State University Press, 1981.
-
(With Douglas L. Conner.) A Black
Physician’s Story: Bringing Hope in Mississippi. Foreword by Aaron
Henry. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1985.
-
Grover Cleveland, A Bibliography.
Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1988.
-
(Editor with Charles D. Lowery.)
Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights: From Emancipation to the
Present. Foreword by David J. Garrow. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1992.
-
Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order.
New York: Free Press, 1993.
Assault at West Point: The Court-Martial of Johnson Whittaker. New York:
Maxwell Macmillan International/Collier, 1994.
-
(Coeditor with Wilson D. Miscamble.)
American Political History: Essays on the State of the Discipline. Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1997.
The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson’s White
House. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
Mel Maurer -
04/09/08, "Jesse James, The Last Rebel"
Mel Maurer is a retired executive of the Dana
Corporation and a student of history. He is a past president of the Cleveland
Civil War Roundtable (now its Historian) as well as the Philosophical Club of
Cleveland, and a member of the Titanic Historic Society. An Abraham Lincoln
scholar, Mr. Maurer is a life-time member of the Lincoln Forum, attending its
Symposium in Gettysburg every November.
Mr. Maurer and his wife, Elaine live in
Westlake, Ohio. They have four children (his son, Rick, is also a member of
the Roundtable) and eight grandchildren. His interests include writing, acting
and speaking on community affairs, charitable causes, history and political
issues.
Timothy B. Smith - 03/09/05
, "Myths of Shiloh"
Timothy Smith holds a Ph.D. in history from Mississippi
State University. He worked for years as Park Ranger at the Shiloh
National Battlefield Park and now teaches history at the University of
Tennessee. His books include:
-
This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History,
Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park (2004)
-
Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for
Vicksburg (2004)
-
The Untold Story of Shiloh: The Battle and
the Battlefield (2006)
Jon Thompson -
05/09/07, "The Civil War Letters and Diary of Private Alfred Weedon"
Jon Thompson is the great-great grandson of
Alfred Weedon, a private in the 26th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Among his small
collection of Civil War artifacts, Mr. Thompson prizes most the 75 letters his ancestor
wrote to his wife, Eliza, during the war. His presentation allows the audience
to hold and read the actual letters.
Mr. Thompson retired in 2006 after a thirty-seven year
career teaching English and Civil War history for the Westlake, Ohio City
Schools. He graduated from Ohio University, obtained a Masters degree from
John Carroll University, and did post-graduate work in education at
Baldwin-Wallace College and Kent State University.
Combining his love of literature and history,
Mr. Thompson has written several Civil War plays. In 1991 he created a Blue & Gray
Ball at his school, which remains today an annual event. For years he appeared
in the classroom in costume performing various Civil War personae, both
fictional and non-fictional. In 2000, with the support of the Cleveland Civil
War Roundtable, of which he's a member, Mr. Thompson created an annual Civil War Poetry
Contest for students. As a teacher he always enjoyed taking his students to
Gettysburg and placing "Roses of Honor" at various sites on the
battlefield, and he still takes great pleasure in helping to make Civil War
history come alive for others.
William F.B. Vodrey
- 03/12/08, "Raid!: The Confederacy Comes to St. Albans, Vermont"
William Vodrey is a magistrate of the
Cleveland Municipal Court and a former president of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable. He gives presentations on a wide variety of Civil War topics to
Roundtables and Historical Societies, and recently launched the effort to
have the U.S. Navy name a new class of nuclear-powered submarine the Monitor,
in honor of the famous ironclad.
Mr. Vodrey graduated from Oberlin College and
earned his law degree at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He is
a member of the Civil War Preservation Trust, the Blue & Gray Education
Society, and the Ohio Historical Society, and a former re-enactor with the 51st
Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Co. B, where he, in his own words, "skyrocketed
to the rank of corporal." His essay, "George Washington: Hero of the
Confederacy?" appeared in the October 2004 issue of American History
magazine.
Marjorie Wilson -
10/07/07, "General James Barnett, A Man of Many 'Firsts'"
Marge Wilson is a one of the newest members
of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable as well as its Executive Committee where
she has led the Roundtable into its new relationship with "National
History Day." (Begun in Cleveland, National History Days is a national
educational competition designed to promote an interest in American history in
Junior and Senior high school students.)
Ms. Wilson grew up in 'the East' and is an
honors graduate of Cornell University where she majored in nutrition and
biochemistry; her early professional years involved writing, teaching and
public speaking in these fields. She was bitten late in life with what
she calls the "the Civil War bug". It happened while acting as a
Guide at Lake View Cemetery where she met-up with a group from an area
Roundtable touring the cemetery in search of Civil War-era people buried there.
From her basic study of several Clevelanders
in the Civil War, Ms. Wilson has developed an in-depth report on two Ohio
generals: Maj. Gen. Mortimer D. Leggett and Brig. Gen. James Barnett. Since
2004, she has presented her PowerPoint-illustrated commentaries to many groups
in the Cleveland area.
Ms. Wilson has two grown daughters, both of
whom live in California, where she recently found some rich Civil War archives
in the glorious surroundings of Santa Barbara.
Dan Zeiser -
11/14/07, "George Thomas at the Battle of Chickamauga"
Dan Zeiser has been a student of the Civil
War since childhood. A history major in college, the Roundtable has permitted
him to continue to indulge his fondness for historical figures such as George
Thomas. Over the years, Mr. Zeiser has contributed many articles to The
Charger and has made presentations to the Roundtable on several
occasions. He is known, mostly by himself, for his quirky, yet scholarly
pieces and always appreciates the kind forbearance of members for his
historical ramblings.
Mr. Zeiser has been a member of the
Roundtable since 1992, is a past president and currently serves as Editor of The
Charger. Dan is married and has three children.
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