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