With the advent of September, the 25th Anniversary Campaign of the First Defenders Civil War Roundtable is set to get underway beginning on Tuesday, September 14th, at Giannotti’s Country Restaurant on Pricetown Road. Renowned storyteller Chris Mackowski will kick off the silver anniversary year with his new program: “I’m too late: Joe Johnston & the...
Long-time First Defenders CWRT friend and lecturer Jeffry Wert will present the program at the October 8th gathering of the Round Table at the Inn at Reading. Jeff’s latest work, “Civil War Barons,” is a departure from his previous battlefield and soldiers genre, and focuses on those Northern entrepreneurs who made a fortune while contributing...
The 22nd Campaign of the First Defenders Civil War Roundtable is rapidly drawing to a close, but one program remains on May 14th at the Inn at Reading. Dr. Paul Kahan returns as the featured speaker to discuss the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant and its impact on Reconstruction. “Sam” Grant did not have an...
Noted author and prolific speaker Scott Mingus will provide a presentation on the “Louisiana Tigers at Gettysburg” during the First Defenders Civil War Round Table program on Tuesday, April 9th. Perhaps second only to the famed “Stonewall Brigade,” the Tigers had developed a fierce reputation by the time they arrived in Pennsylvania during the summer...
The First Defenders Civil War Round Table will meet on Tuesday, February 12th (Lincoln’s Birthday!) at the Inn at Reading beginning at 6:00 PM. First Defender Wally Heimbach will present a program on the flamboyant and world-renowned soldier, Phil Kearny. Had the life of the one-armed general not been cut short at Chantilly in 1862,...
It is axiomatic that many military advances were born in the cauldron of the American Civil War, and none more so than treatment of battlefield casualties and medical care for huge armies on the march. Many of these advances are still seen today in military settings around the world. Vice President Mark Quattrock has long-studied...
The central Tennessee town of Franklin is similar to Gettysburg in many ways… population, rural farming folks, generally spared by war… that is until November 1864 when two armies fought in the fields south of town (also like at Gettysburg) in five hours of conflict during which the ferocity and casualties far-exceeded Pickett’s Charge. Yet,...
The next program for the First Defenders Civil War Round Table is scheduled for Tuesday, December 11th, at the Inn at Reading. President Craig Breneiser will present a program on “The Second Battle of Franklin,” an overview of one of the most overlooked and forgotten engagements of the Civil War. However, the “second battle” is...
The late pioneering broadcaster Paul Harvey produced a continuing series in which he would recount events or describe persons in such a way that you were never quite certain where the story was heading. In the end (after a commercial break), he would finally reveal the subject of his narrative, and sign off with his...
The November First Defenders Civil War Roundtable is just two weeks away…November 13th…as we wrap up our appearances by the Emerging Civil War stable of writers and lecturers. Kevin Pawlak, a young and talented historian from northern Virginia, will be presenting a program called “Antietam Endgame,” which will review the three days following the titanic...
