Blake Barber

Our speaker on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, will be Mel Stewart Hankla, a Kentucky original, just like the subject of his talk!

Born and raised in Jamestown, Kentucky, Mel earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Kentucky University. He then earned his doctorate in Education Administration through the cooperative Doctoral Program at the University of Louisville and Western Kentucky University.

Mel is the founder of American Historic Services, LLC, where he is a noted collector, researcher, writer, and lecturer on Kentucky’s heritage. He is the co-founder and past president of the Contemporary Long Rifle Association and editor of its magazine, American Tradition. As a writer and collector, Mel authored the magnificent book, Into the Bluegrass: Art and Artistry of Kentucky’s Historic Icons.

Mel is a builder of traditional Kentucky long rifles; his craftsmanship and skill led to the National Endowment of the Arts awarding to him a Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grant to study under the legendary Kentucky rifle smith, Hershel House.

As a historical actor and educator, Mel worked for 20 years with the Kentucky Humanities Council presenting Chautauqua characters of frontiersmen Simon Kenton and General George Rogers Clark. In 2012 Mel was cast for the leading role in the PBS documentary “An Audacious American:” The Story of Kentucky Abolitionist, Cassius Marcellus Clay. It is from his work on that film that we will hear from him on April 9th.  Please come and bring a friend.  It promises to be a delightful evening.

Joseph M. Beilein Jr. is an associate professor of history at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, where he teaches courses on the Civil War and military history, and American history more broadly. Dr. Beilein will discuss his findings from his latest book, A Man by Any Other Name: William Clarke Quantrill and the Search for American Manhood. In the book, Beilein brings to life a unique vision of William Clarke Quantrill, the notorious guerrilla in Missouri and Kansas who died in Kentucky.

Few men of the Civil War era were as complicated or infamous as William Clarke Quantrill. Before the war, he shifted from being a fastidious, northern-born schoolmaster to rough frontiersman to confidence man, developing certain notions and skills on his way to becoming a proslavery bushwhacker. He is considered the architect of the Confederate raid on Lawrence, Kansas in August 1863 that led to the murder of 180 mostly unarmed men and boys. Beilein will offer a new look at the life of Quantrill, examining him in the context of nineteenth-century (white) manhood so that we might get a better sense of the man behind the iconic, disreputable name, including a brief but bloody and fascinating time bushwhacking in Kentucky in 1865. There, at Wakefield, Kentucky, between Taylorsville and Bloomfield, he was mortally wounded, dying in Louisville twenty days later.

Beilein is also the author of  Bushwhackers: Guerrilla Warfare, Manhood, and the Household in Civil War Missouri (Kent State, The Civil War Era in the South, 2016) as well as the editor of William Gregg’s Civil War: The Battle to Shape the History of Guerrilla Warfare  (UGA, New Perspectives on the Civil War Era, 2019) and co-editor (with Matthew C. Hulbert) of The Civil War Guerrilla: Unfolding the Black Flag in History, Memory, and Myth (UPK, New Directions in Southern History, 2015).

WILLIAM C. “JACK” DAVIS, retired Executive Director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and Professor of History at Virginia Tech, previously spent 31 years in editorial and marketing management in the book and magazine publishing industry. He has consulted for numerous film and television productions and was senior advisor for the A&E and History Channel series “Civil War Journal.” Davis is the author or editor of more than sixty books on the subject of Civil War and Southern history, and most recently co-edited with Sue Heth Bell, The Whartons’ War: The Civil War Correspondence of General Gabriel C. Wharton & Anne Radford Wharton, 1863-1865. He is currently working with Ron Maxwell, director of the epic films “Gettysburg” and “Gods and Generals,” on two docudrama series for television. ■

Dr. Patrick Lewis is the Director of Collections & Research at the Filson Historical Society and co-editor of Ohio Valley History journal. A Trigg County native, he graduated from Transylvania University and holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Kentucky. He previously worked for the National Park Service and the Kentucky Historical Society and has won grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the James Graham Brown Foundation. Lewis is author of For Slavery and Union: Benjamin Buckner and Kentucky Loyalties in the Civil War (University Press of Kentucky, 2015) and co-editor of Playing at War: Identity & Memory in American Civil War Era Video Games, under contract with LSU Press. ■

President’s Report | What Is Juneteenth?

Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect on January 1, 1863, the Federal government could not enforce it in places still under Confederate control. And even after Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, slavery remained relatively unaffected in Texas. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, and Union General Gordon Granger stood on Texas soil and read General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas. Although it has long celebrated in the African American community as a second “Independence Day,”  this monumental event has, until recently, remained largely unknown to many Americans.

In 1979, Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official holiday. In June 2021, Congress passed a resolution establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday. President Biden signed it into law on June 17, 2021.

Incidentally, General Granger, who died at Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1876, was married to the former Maria Letcher, daughter of a Lexington, Kentucky physician. Granger is buried in the Lexington Cemetery. ■

Kent Masterson Brown

Peter Cozzens is a former Army captain and Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of State. The members of the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable will be the first to hear from Peter about his findings in this remarkable new book, A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South, due to be published later this month.

Peter is an international-award winning author of eighteen books on the American Civil War and the American West. Among his books on the Civil War are This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga and A Shipwreck of Their Hopes: The Battles of Chattanooga. Both of those books were Main Selections of the History Book Club and Military Book Club and were chosen by Civil War Magazine as two of the 100 greatest works ever written on the American Civil War. Peter has also authored a series of remarkable books on the Indian Wars. His first, The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West, received the Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History and the Caroline Bancroft Prize in Western History and was judged the Best Book of 2016 by Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle, the London Times, the Seattle Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Newsday. In 2021, Peter published his most recent book, Tecumseh and the Prophet: The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation, winner of the George Washington Prize and the Spur Award of the Western Writers of America.

Peter and his wife, Antonia Feldman, live in Kensington, Maryland. ■

President’s Report

I must say with the March 2023 meeting, the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable is off to a fabulous start! I do not believe I can recall in recent memory such a great turnout of members and such enthusiasm as I witnessed in that meeting. Our speaker, James Hessler’s subject matter, the wild life of Major General Daniel E. Sickles, was undoubtedly what drove so many members to attend. And why not? Having been such an unbelievable rake, among other things, Sickles captures the attention of people today just like he did in his lifetime. Jim gave the Roundtable a marvelous lecture. I can state with complete honesty, he had a fabulous time being in Lexington with the Roundtable. He told me as he left, and again by email when he returned home, that he never enjoyed himself more. Like the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable of yesteryear, let’s always strive to make the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable the largest and best such organization in America, and we will continue to draw great speakers, with great topics, to Lexington.

A word about our April lecture. We will have one of the most noted Civil War and Indian War scholars in America addressing us about Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Indian war for the American South. The Kentucky Civil War Roundtable, on occasion, has had speakers address its members on subjects far removed from the Civil War. This lecture will be a special one about an aspect of American History rarely discussed. Get ready for a most interesting talk by one of America’s foremost military history scholars. ■

Kent Masterson Brown

James Hessler has worked as a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park for two decades. Jim has authored or co-authored three full-length books on the Gettysburg campaign: Sickles at Gettysburg (2009), Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg (2015), and Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard (2019). His books have received several distinguished awards. He also authored articles in Gettysburg Magazine, America’s Civil War, and Hallowed Ground Magazine.

Jim currently co-hosts the popular Battle of Gettysburg Podcast. His other media appearances include Travel Channel, C-SPAN, NPR, PCN-TV, and other outlets. He was one of the primary content designers for the American Battlefield Trust’s mobile Gettysburg application.

Jim is a frequent speaker for Civil War Round Tables and other historical groups nationwide. In addition to Gettysburg, he leads tours of several other battlefields and historic sites across the country. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Little Bighorn Associates Board of Directors and is a former Executive Council member for the Association of Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guides.

Follow Jim’s Facebook page at James Hessler’s Gettysburg History to receive updates on Jim’s current and future projects. ■

President’s Report

First of all, I hope each and every member of the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable had a wonderful Holiday season and that the New Year will bring each of you happiness, health, and prosperity.

I thought it would be good to give members an indication of how the Civil War Roundtable movement is doing generally in this strange time in which we live. I have had the opportunity to address many of the Civil War Roundtables across the country. From August, 2022 until January 15, 2023, I have addressed the Knoxville (Tennessee), Mid-Ohio (Marietta), Lynchburg (Virginia), Gettysburg (Pennsylvania), Richmond (Virginia) and Louisville (Kentucky) Civil War Roundtables. All have had overflow crowds, and, each time, I have given the members the greetings from the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable. Many of the members ask me how the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable is doing. I tell them that it is doing extremely well with great crowds and great speakers. Judging from what I have observed, the movement is alive and well. Of all those roundtables, though, the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable remains the oldest and most distinguished. I am proud to be its president.

Our March 20th meeting is bound to be very entertaining as our speaker, Jim Hessler, a prominent licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg, will speak about his fine biography of none other than Major General Daniel E. Sickles, perhaps the most controversial figure of not only the Battle of Gettysburg but the entire Civil War. See you there! ■

Kent Masterson Brown
August 17, 2022.

Dr. Paul Quigley is the Director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and the James I. Robertson, Jr. Associate Professor of Civil War History in the Department of History at Virginia Tech. He is a native of Manchester, England, and holds degrees from Lancaster University in England and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Quigley has written many articles on various aspects of the Civil War that have appeared in such notable journals as the Journal of Southern History, and the Journal of the Civil War Era, as well as newspapers such as the Roanoke Times, the Richmond Times Dispatch, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. He is also on the editorial board of the journal The Civil War.

Dr. Quigley’s most noted work is the subject of his lecture to the Roundtable. His book, Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, won the British Association for American Studies Book Prize, the Jefferson Davis Award from the Museum of the Confederacy, and the Albert Lee Shrum Award from the Mu Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. He is currently working on a book for Oxford University Press on the life of Preston Brooks, the South Carolina Congressman who achieved notoriety by caning Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor in 1856. ■

Cameron Sauers is a summa cum laude graduate in History from Gettysburg College under our friend and frequent speaker Dr. Peter Carmichael and is studying for his master’s degree and doctorate in History at the University of Kentucky under one of our executive committee members, Dr. Amy Taylor. This fascinating lecture discusses how and why the American Civil War influenced the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Beautiful and the Damned, Tender is the Night, This Side of Paradise, and, of course, The Great Gatsby.

President’s Report

I hope that all of you, the loyal members of the Kentucky Civil War Roundtable, have had a
wonderful Summer, and that you are ready for a great season of speakers and camaraderie. This year’s schedule varies a bit from past years. To begin with, our first meeting will be Tuesday, September 13, 2022. Thereafter, we meet on Mondays, November 21, 2022, March 20, 2023, April 17, 2023, and May 15, 2023. Also note that due to weather concerns, the Executive Committee decided to rearrange the Spring Schedule so that we will meet now in March rather than January.

We have a roster of great speakers lined up, so mark your calendars. In November, we will hear from Dr. Paul Quigley, Dr. Bud Robertson’s successor at the Virginia Civil War Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia. He will discuss Shifting Grounds: Nationalism in the American South, 1848-1865.

In March, James A. Hessler, Senior Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg, will speak on his book Sickles at Gettysburg.

In April, we will be treated to a lecture by Civil War author and historian Peter Cozzens, who will address his forthcoming book, Andrew Jackson and the Creek Wars. Although that is not a Civil War topic, it is a subject of enormous interest, and Mr. Cozzens is a wonderful speaker.

For our final 2023 meeting in May, we will have a surprise guest, a very prominent author and lecturer!

But first, in September, the season will start off with one of the most interesting lectures I have ever heard: “F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Civil War.” I am sure all of you, like me before I heard this talk, have no idea of how and why the American Civil War influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Beautiful and the Damned, Tender is the Night, This Side of Paradise, and, of course, The Great Gatsby. Our first speaker, Cameron Sauers, will tell us. A summa cum laude graduate in History from Gettysburg College under our friend and frequent speaker Dr. Peter Carmichael, Cameron is studying for his master’s degree and doctorate in History at the University of Kentucky under one of our executive committee members, Dr. Amy Taylor. It will be a fascinating presentation.

Cameron’s lecture will be held at the Embassy Suites on Newtown Pike on Tuesday, September 13, 2022. A cocktail reception will begin the festivities at 5:30 PM, dinner is at 6:00 PM, and the begins at 7:00 PM. I look forward to seeing all our members there! ■

Kent Masterson Brown
August 17, 2022.