This article first appeared in Atlas Obscura on October 25th, 2018, and was written by Evan Nicole Brown. In modern-day Altavista, Virginia, a town that covers 5 square miles of what was the first English colony in North America, sits the Avoca Museum. The former residence of Colonel Charles Lynch, a politician and American Revolutionary Patriot, it...
A forthcoming reassessment of James Longstreet and his role at Gettysburg is about to roll off the presses and into bookstores, and early reviews suggest author Cory Pfarr has hit a home run. Pfarr, an American history write hailing from Baltimore, argues that Longstreet’s record has been unfairly discredited. Beginning with Jubal Early, William Pendelton...
On Thursday morning, May 31st, an eager group of First Defenders and guests met at the Reynolds/Buford monuments along the Chambersburg Pike to begin a day of monument maintenance for the Adopt-a-Position initiative sponsored by the Gettysburg Military Park. First Defenders have regularly participated in this effort for many years (as often as not in...
The Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association (GBPA) passed along an interesting tidbit: the Vermont legislature has unanimously passed a joint resolution supporting the preservation efforts for Camp Letterman in Gettysburg. What makes this interesting is the joint resolution boasted 30 co-sponsors, which just happens to be the number of senators in the legislature. Of even more...
Word has been passed along to the Round Table about an state auction at the Green Hills Auction Center in Mohnton on Monday, April 2nd. Auctioneer Sam Ferraro has a consignment of the estate’s books, almost all of which are classic editions. They will be up for auction at 2:00 pm. There is a beautiful set...
A springtime “Joe’s Jaunts” has been set for Saturday April 28th, and the destination will be the Montgomery Cemetery in nearby Norristown. The final resting place for no less than a half-dozen Union generals (including Winfield Scott Hancock), the cemetery had long been in poor condition before the Montgomery County Historical Society began restoring it...
In September 2018, Bentonville Battlefield and the Friends of Bentonville Battlefield will host “Two Weeks of Fury” a symposium and whirlwind tour of the Carolinas Campaign. The schedule includes tours of Wise’s Forks, Civil War Fayetteville, Averasboro, Bentonville and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the Monroe’s Crossroads battlefield on Fort Bragg. Historians taking part in...
It is with great sadness the First Defenders Civil War Round Table announces the passing of charter member Robert “Bob” Shuman following an illness spanning nearly six months. Bob was born in Chambersburg, the son of the late Daniel Leslie and Alice (Ott) Shuman. Many of us have heard Bob’s presentation of the “Burning of...
The following article was written and distributed by the Associated Press on November 16th. STARKVILLE, Miss. (AP) — It’s not ironic, but intentional. Ulysses S. Grant, the Union general who won the Civil War and later the presidency, is back in Mississippi in a way few would have imagined not long ago. His new...
Our next program is scheduled for December 12th, and our own Greg Stull will present his second First Defenders program entitled “October 8, 1862: Perryville- The Battle That Wasn’t Supposed to Be.” The fall of 1862 would be dismal for the Confederacy as Robert E. Lee’s Maryland Campaign would be turned back at Antietam, but...
