February 17, 2026

The Battle of Stones River (December 31, 1862 – January 2, 1863) was the bloodiest battle by percentage of loss in the Civil War. It also occurred at a critical time in the war and for the United States; Abraham Lincoln believed the Union victory there may have saved the Union. This talk will explore the battle and its context. 

Christopher L. Kolakowski is Director of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison, WI. He received his BA in History and Mass Communications from Emory & Henry College, and his MA in Public History from the State University of New York at Albany. Chris has spent his career interpreting and preserving American military history with the National Park Service, New York State government, the Rensselaer County (NY) Historical Society, the Civil War Preservation Trust, Kentucky State Parks, the U.S. Army, and the MacArthur Memorial. He has written and spoken on various aspects of military history from 1775 to the present and is the author of six books on the American Civil War and World War II in the Pacific. He is a contributor to the Emerging Civil War Blog, a Senior Fellow of the Consortium of Indo-Pacific Researchers, and a reviewer and contributor to the Air Force Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs.