Blog – Page 11 – Blue and Gray Education Society

End-of-Year Giving Opportunities

November 5, 2020November 4, 2020 by Len Riedel

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

November 5, 2020November 4, 2020 by Len Riedel

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

October Medford Gallery Cheat Sheet

February 9, 2022October 30, 2020 by bgadmin

Here is the info that we have for the October 2020 Medford Gallery photos. Thank you to everyone who contributed opinions and ideas!

October 2020 A: Allison M. Stickney, Company G, 1st Battalion, Pennsylvania Volunteers 100 Day Militia: Portrait of man wearing medals, round lapel pin and arm patch. Member listing of the S. C. Lawrence Post 66 of Dept. of Massachusetts GAR, Medford, dated 1898 shows Allison M Stickney, from Company G, 1st Battalion Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia and Company E, 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, with a P. O. address of 11 Wareham Street.

October 2020 B: Breastworks on Round Top: Low wall of flat stones, pine tree on hilltop. Part of papermaker’s embossed label shows “BFK.”

October 2020 D: Quartermaster Headquarters Alexandria Virginia: Brick building with awnings on windows, American flag flying above. Men outside and in windows. Storage shed behind building, white picket fence lower right to center, wooden fence lower left to center.

October 2020 E: Evacuation of Port Royal Virginia, May 30, 1864: Group of men, some on horseback, crossing pontoon bridge and boarding ship. Two cows in foreground.

October 2020 F: Ward in Armory Square Hospital, Washington, DC: 1864. Nurses and orderlies attending group of wounded men in hospital. Row of U.S. flags hanging from ceiling.

October 2020 G: Ruins at Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia: Men standing amidst brick and stone ruins.

October 2020 H: Fort Sumner Fair Oaks Virginia June 1862: Men in uniform in foreground with cannons. Man at center holding a cannon swab.

October 2020 I: Battlefield of Resaca, Georgia: Railroad running through river valley with a fortified bridge in background crossing river. River left center. Structures on the right. Small railroad depot left of main structures.

October 2020 J: Keystone Battery Pennsylvania Light Artillery right half. Cannons and caissons and soldiers, positioned across center of image. Tree at left center.

October 2020 K: Sanitary Commission Wagons: Field with wagons surrounded by large group of men and horses. Two men in foreground. Wagon labeled: Supply Number 34 2nd B 35d[?] Company B.

October 2020 L: Soldier’s Cemetery, City Point, Virginia: Outdoor scene. Rows of fresh unmarked graves in foreground. Graves with wooden ‘headstone’ markers in background. Fence, tents and structures beyond grave yard. Man in uniform standing at right background of image next to tent.

October 2020 M: Camp of 40th Massachusetts Infantry at Merner’s(?) Hill Virginia winter 1862-1863: Tent encampment, snow in foreground.

October 2020 N: General H. W. Halleck: Knees up portrait of man standing in U. S. lieutenant general’s uniform. Three quarter profile facing toward right of image. Left arm akimbo with hand behind back. Right arm on chair back holding glove in hand. Chair to left of image. [Printed on envelope:] MOLLUS Massachusetts.

October 2020 O: General Weitzel’s Headquarters, Army of James: Winter quarters on left. Band playing at right.

Telling the Civil War Through Art

February 9, 2022October 30, 2020 by bgadmin

You can learn a lot from paintings depicting events that happened during the Civil War, both on and off the battlefield. Winslow Homer, Frederic Edwin Church, and Eastman Johnson, all famed for their own distinctive styles and motifs, are among the American artists who captured various glimpses into the four-year struggle. Rather than following the … Read more

Historian Talk: Scott Hartwig and the Allure of Gettysburg

October 30, 2020 by Jane Martin

Scott Hartwig is a popular historian for BGES, and while he has spent his career at Gettysburg working for the National Park Service, his interest and scholarship is at Antietam. He has been working on the definitive campaign study in two volumes for the 1862 Maryland Campaign. Volume One was published by Johns Hopkins Press … Read more

BGES Members Making a Difference: Mike Green

October 30, 2020October 30, 2020 by Mike Kennedy

Growing up on the West Coast shaped BGES member Mike Green’s life in ways that are still evident today. Born in Washington, he moved south with his family to California when he was 3. They settled in Redding, also known as Central Valley. Green was a good athlete who loved music and the outdoors. He … Read more

Book Review: Besieged, Mobile 1865

October 30, 2020 by Len Riedel

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

Tour Talk: Tim Smith and the Real Horse Soldiers

October 30, 2020October 24, 2020 by Mike Kennedy

For many historians, there is nothing more exciting than having a personal connection to their subject matter. BGES member Tim Smith knows this feeling very well. A native of Mississippi, he grew up a stone’s throw from the hills and valleys where Union Calvary general Benjamin Grierson famously led his troops on an attack in … Read more

Where to Find Civil War Ghosts

February 9, 2022September 29, 2020 by bgadmin

Halloween is nigh, and with it, the perfect time to talk about ghosts. Are they real? Who knows. What we do know is that, if they are, the Civil War and the gruesome deaths that it doled out provide plenty of fodder. Lots of places are said to be haunted. Here are some of the … Read more

Reliving 15 Years of BGES Lectures

September 30, 2020September 28, 2020 by Len Riedel

Sometimes you instinctively do the right things from the start and then eventually realize what you have done was really important. So it is with BGES’s latest project, The BGES Video Archives. In October 1994 we assembled an all-star team at the Holiday Inn at the Richmond Airport to do a one-day symposium of lectures preceding … Read more