Take a battlefield tour

Our trips to Civil War sites with expert guides allow participants to gain a better understanding of the events that occurred on those sites while walking the grounds. We also visit other battlefields in addition to Civil War ones. Our goal is to understand the WHAT and the WHY of each site we visit. For a complete listing of our current programs, click here.

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Receding Tide
Vicksburg and Gettysburg: The Campaigns That Changed the Civil War

It's a poignant irony in American history that on Independence Day, 1863, not one but two pivotal battles ended in Union victory, marked the high tide of Confederate military fortune, and ultimately doomed the South’s effort at secession. But on July 4, 1863, after six months of siege, Ulysses Grant’s Union army finally took Vicksburg and the Confederate west. On the very same day, Robert E. Lee was in Pennsylvania, parrying the threat to Vicksburg with a daring push north to Gettysburg. For two days the battle had raged; on the next, July 4, 1863, Pickett’s Charge was thrown back, a magnificently brave but fruitless assault, and the fate of the Confederacy was sealed, though nearly two more years of bitter fighting remained until the war came to an end.

In Receding Tide, Ed Bearss draws from his popular tours to chronicle these two widely separated but simultaneous clashes and their dramatic conclusion. As the recognized expert on both Vicksburg and Gettysburg, Bearss tells the fascinating story of this single momentous day in our country’s history, offering his readers narratives, maps, illustrations, characteristic wit, dramatic new insights and unerringly intimate knowledge of terrain, tactics, and the colorful personalities of America’s citizen soldiers, Northern and Southern alike.

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Fields of Honor

Ed Bearss has been a frequent BGES seminar faculty member and we have videotaped him every step of the way. Fields of Honor was a joint effort between him, BGES and the National Geographic Society to put down in his words the stories of pivotal Civil War battles, based on those videotapes of him on the actual battlefields. BGES members dedicated many hours of their time to transcribe the tapes and Ed then made revisions to shorten the chapters into cogent stores, which he did in a masterly fashion. The book is representative of him and yet merely scratches the surface of material still there. As a stand alone work, it will not disappoint you. To learn more about Fields of Honor, click here. Read Andrew Ferguson's 2006 review in the Weekly Standard.

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You can also purchase Fields of Honor, using our downloadable order form here or by calling 434-250-9921.

Learn More about Ed Bearss

A group of soldiers visit Gettysburg during a joint Yellow Ribbon Fund and Blue & Gray Education Society program.

Photo courtesy of Lee McDowell, BGES member.

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