Neil P. Chatelain Wins Awards for Treasure and Empire in the Civil War

It has been a busy start of 2025 for Neil P. Chatelain, with much of the activity centering around his 2024 book Treasure and Empire in the Civil War: The Panamá Route, the West, and the Campaigns to Control America’s Mineral Wealth. The book, which merges recent scholarship about the Civil War in the southwest, the western territories, and the Pacific coast with new scholarship about the Panamá route during the conflict, was recently selected for a pair of awards.

Neil has been selected as the recipient of the 2024 A.M. Pate, Jr. Award in Civil War History. This is presented by the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table each year for outstanding original research on the Trans-Mississippi sector of the Civil War. Neil recently journeyed to the round table to receive the award in person, and to speak about his research.

It was also recently announced that Neil is a recipient of the 2025 Lone Star College Faculty Writing Award for his book Treasure and Empire in the Civil War. That award, which is presented to active faculty members with outstanding writing selections, will be officially presented in February.

Neil P. Chatelain is an assistant professor of history at Lone Star College – North Harris, in Houston, Texas. He is also Emerging Civil War’s vice president and chair of our organizations editorial board. You can learn more about Treasure and Empire in the Civil War at Neil’s personal website.