ECW Welcomes Kevin C. Donovan

ECW is pleased to welcome a new member

Kevin C. Donovan, Esq., a retired lawyer originally from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, is the former head of the New Jersey Employment & Labor Law practice of a national law firm. Kevin graduated with a B.A. (magna cum laude) in History from St. Joseph’s University (Philadelphia) and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Since assuming the status of a “recovering lawyer,” Kevin has focused on his passion for the Civil War, with an eye to topics reflecting the intersection of the war and the law.

Kevin’s interest in the Civil War initially was cultivated by his father, who loved American history and hoped his son ultimately would become a history teacher. But the key spark came when, as a grade school student, Kevin found Bruce Catton’s Army of the Potomac trilogy in his small Catholic school’s newly established library (placed in an old house). Hundreds of Civil War books/magazines read and literally dozens of trips to Gettysburg later, Kevin’s passion endures. The opportunity to work in the field of employment law, which Kevin came to realize has roots in Reconstruction Era legislation, further whetted his appetite for combining love of the Civil War with the law. Kevin looks forward to honoring his father’s desire for his son to become, in at least some small measure, a teacher of history.

Kevin is active in the Roanoke (VA) Civil War Round Table, spearheading its marketing activities, and has spoken to multiple groups on the topic “The Court Martial of Fitz John Porter: Fair or Fixed?” He expects to set a long-distance speaking tour record by giving that same talk while spreading the good word about ECW to the American Civil War Round Table of the United Kingdom in June 2025, an idea originally prompted by Chris Mackowski’s podcast interview of that group’s leaders.

Kevin is a UVa, Penn State, Phillies, and Eagles fan. Kevin and his Virginia-born spouse Martha Loving (nee Nase) now reside in Martha’s childhood house in Roanoke, VA with their two cats, Thurston Howell III and Ulysses S. Grant (successor to Mosby the cat). They have two children, John and Virginia, and four grand cats.

Kevin has written several guest posts through the years, and here’s a list from the ECW archives:

• A Tale of Two Tombstones
• The Last Casualty of Second Manassas
• Making America’s Civil War Great Again
• Fine Dining, POW Style
• The First Things We Do, Let’s Kill All the Lawyers
• Book review: Searching for Irvin McDowell
• Book Review: Creating a More Perfect Slaveholders’ Union
• Book Review: The Civil War in the Age of Nationalism
• Book Review: War on Record