New Year, New Program

I am proud to welcome you to the BGES Video Archives, which officially opens on January 1, 2021. As you know, we have an archive of more than 1,000 hours of video divided between lectures and field tours. We divided this project into two phases: the lectures and the field tours. The lectures span some … Read more

BGES Zoom Presentations Set Up 2021 Tour Season

If 2020 has injected anything into our discipline, it has been the explosive increase of Zoom presentations and virtual tours from organizations that normally meet in person. BGES will join in the process in less than a week and has developed a schedule through June 14, 2021. We will meet once a week initially, on … Read more

Traditional End-of-Year Appeal Helps BGES

Covid had changed all of our lives, but prior to it, BGES enjoyed its best response ever to a new tradition that has no purpose other than to balance the BGES books. BGES’s Annual Bucket Appeal is timed to help people considering their tax vulnerability and the ongoing needs of their favored charitable organizations to … Read more

Special Books Make Special  Gifts 

This is a 10-day offer only. We have no guarantees after December 16. You may purchase copies of our limited edition special leather editions of Fields of Honor, Receding Tide, and Shiloh 1862 for just $45 inclusive of priority mail shipping. Click here. You may buy copies of our special leather edition of The Civil War, A … Read more

Book Review: The Real Horse Soldiers

The Real Horse Soldiers: Benjamin Grierson’s Epic 1863 Civil War Raid Through Mississippi By Timothy Smith (Savas Beatie, 2018 HB, 2020 SB), $19.95 There is perhaps no Civil War operation that is better known but which no one knows anything about than Grierson’s 1863 raid through Mississippi in April–May 1863. Made legendary by John Wayne’s popular … Read more

Vaccine Promises Return to Tours

The best news of the year is that several vaccines will soon begin circulating with widespread immunizations starting in January and February 2021. While details are in the small print, the general working belief is that the first vaccine takes 30 days to create antibodies and that a booster shot will be required. Nationally, the … Read more

End-of-Year Giving Opportunities

BGES members and friends have really come through this year! Our various fundraising efforts have largely offset the lost but budgeted revenue created by the coronavirus. We have completed projects and raised funds when pledged funds were not received. We have funded and completed the projects we planned before the virus hit—thank you. Now we … Read more

Books Make Great Holiday Gifts

Civil War: A Traveler's Guide

As BGES navigated the troubled waters stirred by Coronavirus, we sought to sell 1,000 books to net an estimated $38,000. Pretty aggressive for a group of 400-plus members, but amazingly enough we did sell and ship nearly 400 books—a net of nearly $18,000, and we aren’t quite done. While a Silent Auction of rare collectors … Read more

Book Review: Besieged, Mobile 1865

      Besieged, Mobile 1865 by Russell W. Blount, Jr. (Pelican Press, 2015), $26.95 In 1861, Union commanding general Winfield Scott articulated the Anaconda Plan, a strategy that would defeat the nascent Confederacy by closing down all its lines of commerce, thereby depriving it of a commercial base. Closing ports of trade would deny … Read more