Emerging Civil War Symposium-Press Release

July 25, 2014
For Immediate Release

FIRST ANNUAL EMERGING CIVIL WAR SYMPOSIUM AT STEVENSON RIDGE TO EXAMINE “THE WAR IN 1864”

SPOTSYLVANIA, VA—1864 proved to be the tipping point for American Civil War. Historians from the blog Emerging Civil War will examine the key events of that pivotal year at an upcoming conference to be held in Spotsylvania next month.

The first annual Emerging Civil War Symposium at Stevenson Ridge, co-sponsored by publisher Savas Beatie, LLC, will be held August 15-17, 2014. Stevenson Ridge is a historic property that sits on a part of the Spotsylvania battlefield adjacent to the National Park.

Registration for the symposium is $55 and includes events on Friday evening, a daylong series of presenters on Saturday, including keynote speaker Eric Wittenberg; and battlefield tours on Sunday.

“The Civil War’s sesquicentennial has provided the perfect opportunity to not only revisit the events of 150 years ago but also spend time reflecting on what those events meant—and what they continue to mean,” says historian Kristopher D. White, Emerging Civil War’s co-founder.

Friday evening’s events include an opening meet-and-greet reception and book signing with nearly a dozen authors, including publisher Theodore Savas. That will be followed by an open panel discussion on “The War in 1864” emceed by Stevenson Ridge’s historian-in-residence Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., another of Emerging Civil War’s co-founders.

Saturday’s line-up includes five Emerging Civil War historians who will each present on an aspect of the war in 1864:

• Daniel T. Davis—“More Desperate Fighting Has Not Been Witness on this Continent”: Ulysses S. Grant and the Overland Campaign.
• Phillip Greenwalt—From ‘Old Bald Head’ to ‘Lee’s Bad Old Man’: A Study of the Second Corps, Army of Northern Virginia in 1864
• Chris Kolakowski—1864: The Last Stand of the Confederate Navy
• Meg Thompson—A Bad Month for the President: Campaigning the Election of ’64
• Lee White—“To die like men”: Patrick Cleburne and the Tennessee Campaign of 1864

Keynote speaker Eric Wittenberg will cap off Saturday with “The Trevilian Station Raid.”

Sunday includes guided tours of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania battlefields led by historians Kristopher D. White and Chris Mackowski, with Daniel Davis and Richard Chapman.

For more information or to register, visit http://emergingcivilwar.com/emerging-civil-war-symposium-at-stevenson-ridge or contact Stevenson Ridge at (540) 582-6263.