Our Faculty

Keith Bohannon is a professor of history at the University of West Georgia specializing in U.S. Civil War history. He has led numerous tours of Eastern and Western Theater battlefields and worked a number of years as an historian with the U.S. National Park Service at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park and Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park. He is the author of numerous essays published by both university and non-academic presses, including several that examine aspects of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Gary Ecelbarger is one of the country’s foremost authorities of the 1862 Valley Campaign as well as the most prolific scholar of modern campaign literature. He has written four books about the campaign, two additional monographs, as well as at least a dozen articles and feature length contributions in the nation’s top Civil War magazines. His most acclaimed works are We Are In For It!: The First Battle of Kernstown and Three Days in the Shenandoah: Stonewall Jackson at Front Royal and Winchester.

Parker Hills is a retired brigadier general, Mississippi Army National Guard, who also served almost 32 years as a Regular Army and National Guard officer. For years Hills conducted the Military Staff Ride program for the state of Mississippi and is an expert on Mississippi battlefields. Hills conducts tours for Road Scholars (formerly Elderhostel) and is a corporate leadership trainer who founded Battle Focus. He is active in the preservation of Civil War battlefields, and has served as president of Friends of Raymond and of Friends of the Vicksburg Campaign and Historic Trail. He is chair of the Mississippi Civil War Battlefield Commission and a member of the Mississippi Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission. Hills is a graduate of the US Army War College and holds a Master of Education degree in Psychology. He is the author of the BGES monograph, A Study in Warfighting, Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads, the co-author of the Driving Tour Guide to the Vicksburg Campaign, and co-author of the prize-winning book Receding Tide, Vicksburg and Gettysburg, The Campaigns that Changed the Civil War. He has contributed a chapter entitled “Roads to Raymond” for Vicksburg: Mississippi Blitzkrieg, edited by Steve Woodworth, and his latest work, Vicksburg: Art of Commemoration, is a tour of the art and architecture of Vicksburg National Military Park.

Neil Mangum is one of the nation’s foremost Indian Wars authorities and is a life long student of George Armstrong Custer. Neil served his career in the National Park Service where his postings included a tour as the Superintendent of the Little Big Horn National Battlefield. He was a key player in significant changes that made the site more inclusive and healing. His engaging manner has opened many doors to heritage tourists and made him one of the most respected historians in the country. He has also led tours of the Great Sioux Indian War, The Apache Wars, The Central Plains Indian War, the Buffalo Red River War and many other western themes. He is the author of the definitive work, The Battle of the Rosebud: Prelude to the Little Big Horn. Neil retired from the NPS in 2003 and now lives in Payson, Arizona.

Richard McMurry is one of the country’s foremost authorities on the Western Theater of the Civil War and particularly the 1864 Atlanta Campaign. He is the author of several highly acclaimed books, including Atlanta 1864: Last Chance for the Confederacy, John Bell Hood and the War for Southern Independence and Two Great Rebel Armies.

Scott Patchan is a leading scholar and battlefield guide on the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War. He has written four books on the region and dozens of articles in publications such as Blue and Gray, North and South and Civil War Times. He also serves as a member of the Kernstown Battlefield Board of Directors and on the Shenandoah Valley Battlefield Foundation’s Resource Protection committee. His most recent publications include The Last Battle of Winchester: Sheridan, Early and The Shenandoah Valley Campaign, August 7 to September 19, 1864; Second Manassas: Longstreet’s Attack and The Struggle for Chinn Ridge; The Battle of Piedmont and Hunter’s Raid on Staunton and Shenandoah Summer: The 1864 Valley Campaign. His blog is Shenandoah 1864.

Len Riedel is the Executive Director of the BGES. A retired Air Force officer, Riedel has a Master of Arts degree in history. He is the architect of the BGES’ diverse programming and of considerable preservation accomplishments in the nonprofit community. Len blogs on this site: BGES Blog.

Bert Dunkerly
Rick Hatcher
Chris Kolakowski
Jim Ogden
Gloria Swift
Stephen Wise