Speakers and Topics Archive


 

2025 – 2026 Campaign

Date Speaker Topic
Sep 16 2025 Greg Biggs Nashville: Siren’s Song of the Western Confederacy
Oct 21 2025 Curt Fields Belmont to Fort Donelson
Nov 18 2025 Tim Smith The Real Horse Soldiers
Dec 16 2025 Paul Hodnefield Sherman’s Woodticks: 8th MN Infantry Regiment
Jan 20 2026 Stefan Lund Parole of Prisoners of War in the Civil War
Feb 17 2026 Chris Kolakowski “Had it been a defeat instead, the Nation could have scarcely lived over.” Stones River 1862-63
Mar 17 2026 Ian Iverson The Union in Peril: Lincoln and the Secession Crisis 1860-April 1861
May 19 2026 Brian Jordan Held in War’s Grasp: The Ordeals of Veteranhood After the Civil War

2024 – 2025 Campaign

Date Speaker Topic
Sep 17 2024 Theresa Kaminski Dr. Mary Walker: Medal of Honor Winner
Oct 15 2024 Ms. Gary Morgan Andersonville Raiders
Nov 19 2024 Randy Duncan President Lincoln’s Response to the Sioux Uprising
Dec 17 2024 Doug Dammann Elmer Ellsworth and the U.S. Zouave Cadets
Jan 21 2025 Stefan Lund Copperheads vs President Lincoln
Feb 18 2025 David Powell Battle of Chickamauga
Mar 18 2025 Bruce Allardice Early Baseball and the Civil War
May 20 2025 Roseann Bacha-Garza The Civil War on the Rio Grande

2023 – 2024 Campaign

Date Speaker Topic
Sep 19 2023 Eric W Buckland An Introduction to Mosby’s Rangers
Oct 17 2023 William Feis General Grenville Dodge, Grant’s Chief Intelligence Officer
Nov 14 2023 Dan Welch General George Sears Greene & Culp’s Hill
Dec 19 2023 Christopher Kolakowski General Grant as Commander-in-Chief of the Union Armes
Jan 16 2024 Derek Lee Civil War Ciphers & Codes Wartime Evolution
Feb 20 2024 Dr. Lesley Gordon The Concept of “Cowardice” in the Civil War
Mar 19 2024 Anne Rubin Food and Hunger During the Civil War
May 21 2024 David Wright Falade U.S. Colored Troops at War

2022 – 2023 Campaign

Date Speaker Topic
Sep 20 2022 Amy Murrell Taylor Emancipation During the Civil War
Oct 18 2022 Richard Bell Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home
Nov 15 2022 Scott Mingus The Louisiana Tigers
Dec 20 2022 Dr. Lisa Rude Out to Work: Women in the Civil War Homefront
Jan 17 2023 John Fazio The Turning Point: The Wilderness and Spotsylvania
Feb 21 2023 Chris Crutchfield The Underground Railroad
Mar 21 2023 Leslie Goddard Clara Barton: Civil War Battlefield Nurse
May 16 2023 Lorien Foote The Yankee Plague: Escaped Union Prisoners and the Collapse of the Confederacy

2021 – 2022 Campaign

Date Speaker Topic
Sep 21 2021 Linda Barnickel Milliken’s Bend: Fighting for Freedom on the Mississippi
Oct 19 2021 Nicole Etheson Bleeding Kansas
Nov 16 2021 Larry Babits Black Confederates
Dec 21 2021 George Romano How Christmas Won the War
Jan 18 2022 COL Ed Lowe James Longstreet in Chattanooga and Knoxville
Feb 15 2022 Dave Page U.S. Grant in Missouri: The Re-education of a Civil War Legend
Mar 15 2022 Caroline Janney Competing Memories of the Civil War
May 17 2022 Wayne Motts Trust in God and Fear in Nothing: Confederate General Lewis Armistead

2020 – 2021 Campaign

Sep 15 2022 Douglas Waller Lincoln’s Spies: Their Secret War to Save the Union
Oct 20 2020 David Dixon Union General August Willich
Nov 17 2020 Thomas Arliskas General U.S. Grant and the Battle of Belmont
Dec 15 2020 Brian Steele Willis General George Henry Thomas
Jan  19 2021 Darryl Sannes

Burn the Town and Sack the Banks: The Confederate Raid on St. Albans, VT

Feb 16 2021 John Fazio Decapitating the Union: Jefferson Davis, Judah Benjamin and the Plot to Assassinate Lincoln
Mar 16 2021 Leslie Goddard Gone with the Wind and the Construction of Civil War Memory
May 18 2021 John Haymond The Infamous Dakota War Trials of 1862: Revenge, Military Law, and the Judgment of History

2019 – 2020 Campaign

Sep 17 2019 Steve Davis When Georgia Howled: Sherman’s Destruction of Atlanta
Oct 15 2019 Matthew Borowick How Northern Financial Decisions Won the Civil War
Nov 19 2019 Joe Fitzharris Murfreesboro: Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Third Minnesota, and “Fake” History
Dec 17 2019 John D. Cox Fredericksburg: “It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it.”
Jan 21 2020 Dave Geister and Pat Bauer Artists in Residence: Gettysburg
Feb 18 2020 Paul Kahan The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: Preserving the Civil War’s Legacy
Mar 17 2020 John Haymond The Infamous Dakota War Trials of 1862: Revenge, Military Law, and the Judgment of History
May 19 2020 Wayne Motts Trust in God and Fear Nothing: Confederate General Lewis A. Armistead

2018 – 2019 Campaign

Sep 18 2018 John Cox Gettysburg and the Battle for Culp’s Hill
Oct 16 2018 David Dixon The Lost Gettysburg Address: Charles Anderson’s Civil War Odyssey
Nov 20 2018 Paul Brueske The Last Siege: The Mobile Campaign, Alabama 1865
Dec 18 2018 Greg Biggs The Question was One of Supplies – The Logistics for William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign
Jan 15 2019 Frederick Stonehouse Blood on the Water: The Great Lakes During the Civil War
Feb 19 2019 Larry Ahlman Oliver Winchester in the Civil War
Mar 19 2019 Dave Page F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Civil War
May 21 2019 George Karvel Kentucky Raider: The Story of Private Commodore Perry Snell

2017 – 2018 Campaign

Sep 19 2017 Ray Boomhower The Sword and the Pen: a Life of Lew Wallace
Oct 17, 2017 Edwin P. Rutan “If I have got to go and fight I am willing” A Union Regiment Forged in the Petersburg Campaign, the 179th New York Volunteer Infantry 1864-1865
Nov 21 2017 Rep. Dean Urdahl Three Paths to Glory: the 2nd and 5th Minnesota Regiments and the 1st Tenn in the First Year of the Civil War
Dec 19 2017 Stephen Osman Minnesota’s Other Civil War: The Dakota Conflict of 1862
Jan 16 2018 George C. Maxwell Civil War Surgeon Archibald S. Maxwell – An Iowa Soldier’s Aid
Feb 20 2018 Brian Dirck Lincoln’s Childhood
Mar 20 2018 Mark Laubacher Weapons of Mass Destruction
May 15 2018 George Romano Thadeus Lowe and the Aeronauts

2016 – 2017 Campaign

 

Sep 20 2016 Bruce Kraig Why the Civil War Made Our Modern Food
Oct 18 2016 George Franks III The Battle of Falling Waters
Nov 15 2016 Tom Huntington Searching for George Gordon Meade: The Forgotten Victor of Gettysburg
Dec 20 2016 Lawrence Babits The USS Maple Leaf: Its History, Discovery and Excavation
Jan 17 2017 Neil Simonson Island Number 10
Feb 21 2017 Paul Kahan Amiable Scoundrel: Lincoln’s Scandalous Secretary of War
Mar 21 2017 Daniel Hoisington It’s a Marvelous Thing: The U.S Sanitary and Christian Commission
May 16 2017 Leslie Schwalm Overrun with Free Negroes: Politics and Resettlement

2015 – 2016 Campaign

 

Sep 15 2015 Tim Smith Corinth 1862: Siege, Battle, Occupation
Oct 20 2015 Robert Girardi The Murder of Union General William “Bull” Nelson
Nov 17 2015 Krista Castillo Fort Negley: A Symbol of Union Occupation, Confederate Defeat, or Something Else Entirely
Dec 15 2015 Stephen Chicoine Renegade – The Unconditional Union Men of Texas
Jan 19 2016 Christopher Price Gettysburg of the West Battle
Feb 16 2016 George Wunderlich Civil War Medicine
Mar 15 2016 Robert May Lincoln Douglas, the Myth of America’s Westward Expansion, and the Coming of the Civil War
May 17 2016 Al Stone as Gen’l Robert E. Lee The Dilemma

2014 – 2015 Campaign

 

Sep 16 2014 Steven Woodworth The Atlanta Campaign
Oct 21 2014 Barry Adams Fifteen Months in Confederate Captivity: The Story of William W. Day
Nov 18 2014 Dale Blanshan Civil War Music Presentation
Dec 16 2014 Wayne Jorgenson Every Man Did His Duty: 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg
Jan 20 2015 Louis Intres Steamship Sultana
Feb 17 2015 Tom Hosier Assassination of Lincoln
Mar 17 2015  Brian Wills Nathan Bedford Forrest
May 19 2015 Marty Daniels Women in the Civil War

2013 – 2014 Campaign

 

Sep 17 2013 Dr. David Williard Confederate Veteran’s Self-Reconstruction During the Years Immediately Following the Civil War
Oct 15 2013 The Honorable Judge John Guthmann A Legal Analysis of the Ownership of the Battle Flag of the 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment, Captured by the 1st Minnesota in Gettysburg
Nov 19 2013 Greg Biggs How Johnny Got His Gun – The Confederate Supply System
Dec 17 2013 Michael D. Cohen Reconstructing the Campus Higher Education and the American Civil War
Jan 21 2014 Harry Bulkeleys General Ulysses S. Grant: I Propose to Fight It Out
Feb 18 2014 Dr. Howard Jones Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War Diplomacy
Mar 18 2014 Jim Rosebrock George McClellan in Perspective – 150 Years Later
May 20 2014 Scott Brackett H. L. Hunley

2012 – 2013 Campaign

 

Sep 18 2012 Melissa Delcour J.E.B. Stuart: American Knight
Oct 16 2012 Dr Richard DiNardo Lee’s Re-treaded Tar Heels: The 26th NC Between Gettysburg and the Wilderness
Nov 20 2012 Jeffrey Patrick Battle of Wilson’s Creek August 10, 1861
Dec 18 2012 MN Historical Staff MNHS’s Civil War Sesquincentennial Exhibit
Jan 15 2013 Dr. David Kolkenat Driven From Home: The Civil War Refugee Crisis
Feb 19 2013 Timothy Townsend Lincoln and Emancipation
Mar 19 2013 Dr. Gary Joiner The Red River Campaign of 1864
May 21 2013 John Marler The Petersburg Campaign

2011 – 2012 Campaign

 

Sep 20 2011 Greg Biggs The Atlanta Campaign, Part I
Oct 18 2011 Greg Biggs The Atlanta Campaign, Part II
Nov 15 2011 Jessica Michna as Mary Todd Lincoln Mary Todd Lincoln Reminisces
Dec 20 2011 Dr. Bruce Evans The Health and Death of Abraham Lincoln
Jan 17 2012 Glen LaFantiasie How Grant and Lincoln Won the War
Feb 21 2012 Mark Steiner Abraham Lincoln’s Law Practice
Mar 20 2012 Vernon Burton The Age of Lincoln, Then and Now
May 15 2012 Daniel Sutherland Guerrilla Warefare in the Western Theater

2010 – 2011 Campaign

 

Sep 21 2010 Dr. Roger Ranson Economics, Slavery & Causes of the American Civil War
Oct 19 2010 Jim Lewis Stones River
Nov 16 2010 Fred Tetor C.S.S. Hunley Recovery and Excavation
Dec 21 2010 Joe Fitzharris Army-Navy Joint Counter-Insurgency Warfare in the Western Theater
Jan 18 2011 Dr. Peter D’Onofrio Advances in Medicine Resulting from the American Civil War
Feb 15 2011 Jim Hessler Sickles at Gettysburg
Mar 15 2011 Dr. Bill Feis Grant and Military Intelligence
May 17 2011 Dr. William H. Roberts Ironclads and Industrial Mobilitation