From the Editor

For most of January, I have been trapped in 1776. That’s not necessarily a bad thing (particularly since I’ve been iced in for the past week here in 2026). My Emerging Revolutionary War (ERW) colleagues have been keeping me busy, and I’ve been keeping them busy in turn.

Two and a half centuries ago this month, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was hot off the press (perhaps oxymoronic for a freezing January). Choose your cliché: the pamphlet was making waves. Stirring the pot. Turning heads. Throwing sparks. When the year dawned, public opinion over independence-or-not had all the urgency of molasses, bogged down as it was in indecision. Paine’s brochure changed all that. John Adams, laboring mightily to drag the Continental Congress toward independence, soon began to feel the political tides shifting in his favor.

Adams has been my main reason for spending time in the 18th century. My book Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution (from Savas Beatie) is shipping from the printer this week, so there’s been much prep work to do. But because my mind is there, I’ve been doing a lot of Rev War-related writing this month on the ERW website. I urge you to take a visit to see all the great writing going on over there.

But that’s not all. We’ve been getting Dan Davis’s and Phill Greenwalt’s ERWS book about the battle of Bunker Hill and the siege of Boston, A Dear-Bought Victory, into production. And the manuscript for Mark Maloy’s and Dan Welch’s ERWS book about the New York Campaign, Conquer or Die, just came in last week. The 250th anniversary of that campaign kicks off this July, and we want to have books in bookshops in time. We have books on the Philadelphia campaign and Saratoga in the works, too.

I've podcasted about John Adams and visited the Delaware home of his rival, John Dickinson. Last month, I visited Independence National Historical Park, Valley Forge, and battlefields of the Philadelphia campaign. I've traded in my winter cap for a tri-corner hat and buckle shoes!

My time with the Revolution has been a pleasant diversion, but it has also helped me better appreciate the Civil War. The Revolution left a lot of unfinished business and never resolved what the conflicting ideas that underpinned the Independence movement actually meant—ideas like freedom, liberty, and equality. Those arguments evolved in the decades between those two wars, and the heated rhetoric of the 1850s did much to calcify the differing sides. Do we want to find ourselves in that same spot again?

America was nearly as divided during the Revolution, we should remember, with Patriots and Loyalists splitting their allegiances, free and slave states suspicious of each other, large and small states bickering over influence, and women reminding men to “remember the ladies.” And, of course, there was the troublesome contradiction of slave-owners crying for “liberty."

I hope we all take the chance to spend some time in 1776 this year. May it inspire you and connect you with our great patriotic past. But I hope it also reminds you that history was and is messy. To look at it otherwise is to ignore what really happened; to remember it as such helps us to avoid its mistakes and reminds us just how remarkable our triumphs have been.

— Chris Mackowski, Ph.D.

Editor-in-Chief

Some of the ERW and ECW fellas got together at "Orrison's Ordinary" to watch the Buffalo Bills lose to the Denver Broncos to watch the NLF playoffs on Saturday, January 17. Chris Mackowski and Kevin Pawlak, native western New Yorkers hoping for a Bills win, ended the day in bitter disappointment, which is par for the course for being Bills fans. Everyone else had a great evening of football, food, and beers. Pictured: Mackowski, Bert Dunkerly, Rob Orrison (host of the day's event), Pawlak, Terry Rensel, Mark Maloy, Matt Atkinson, Dan Davis, Dan Welch, Bill Griffith, and Phill Greenwalt. (Chris and Kevin say, "Go, Bills!")



It was a busy winter break for Neil P. Chatelain. During the holiday Neil took a trip to New Orleans to see family, spoke for the Tallahassee History Round Table about Civil War Mississippi River activity, and spoke for the Brunswick County Civil War Round Table in North Carolina about his book Treasure and Empire in the Civil War. Now it is back to classes.

Caroline Davis is scheduled to speak at the round table in Clarksburg on March 10th about the H. L. Hunley.

Continuing a practice of visiting lesser-known Gettysburg battlefield sites, Kevin C. Donovan visited the Coster Avenue monument to the 154th New York Infantry, which sits before a dramatic outdoor mural depicting the regiment’s stand (see photo). Sgt. Amos Humiston, who famously died clutching an ambrotype of his three children, was in Company C of the 154th.

Jon-Erik Gilot kicked off the roundtable lecture season with programs for the Civil War Roundtable Congress and the Mid Ohio Valley CWRT. 

On April 17–18, Jon-Erik will host the seventh annual Civil War Symposium at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall in Carnegie, PA. The weekend includes lectures by Chris Mackowski, Rob Orrison, Melissa Winn, Ryan Quint, Mark Maloy, Rich Condon, and Phil Spaugy, as well as raffles, book sales, a silent auction, and hard cider tastings and bottle sales from Arsenal Cider, Pittsburgh's own Civil War-themed hard cider distillery. Tickets are $100 are are available on ACFL's website. In partnership with Military Images magazine and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, The Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall is also hosting the Faces of Civil War Nurses exhibit. Featuring life-sized portraits and stories of 20 intrepid nurses, the display will be open from February 14–May 9. Find more information here. 

From Chris Kolakowski: “Our next special exhibit at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, Portraits of Service, opens Feb 6. For more information, visit wisvetsmuseum.com.”

Brian Kowell is enjoying his Florida vacation home until April, playing tennis and attending the monthly meeting of the North Ft. Myers CWRT. He is scheduled to speak before the group on Tuesday, March 5, on the topic, "The Life of William R. Hoel: Mississippi Pilot and Acting Volunteer Lieutenant, U.S.N." Brian also recently visited Gamble Plantation Historical Park in Ellenton, Florida (right). It is a stately antebellum sugar cane plantation that was owned by Maj. Robert Gamble. It was had 3,500 acres and 200 slaves. It was donated to the state by the Florida Division of the UDC. It supposedly was a place where Confederate Secretary of War Judah Benjamin stopped during his flight from Richmond to England.

Evan Portman spoke to the Tallahassee History Roundtable on "A Civil War within a Civil War: the New York City Draft Riots" this month. 

Ryan Quint will be speaking about Dranesville on Feb. 7 at the Longwood University Annual Seminar. It's in partnership with the Appomattox National Historical Park and is free to attend. This year's theme is "From Manassas to the Big Screen." More information here.

Jon Tracey is presenting research on Southern Unionists and the Southern Claims Commission at the Virginia Forum March 20–21 hosted at Shenandoah University.

On the podcast in January, Chris Mackowski spoke with...

• Devan Sommerville on the perils of the Trans-Mississippi theater in 1861

• Neil Chatelain on the infamous practice of impressment during the Civil War

• Dr. Marianne Holdzkom on John Adams for a brief detour into the Revolutionary era

• Curt Fields and ECW’s newest contributor, Melissa Winn, who were inspired by the theme of this year’s Symposium, “Partnerships & Rivalries,” to discuss Grant’s relationship with his chief of staff, John Rawlins

• Kevin Donovan and Evan Portman on three surprising things they each learned over the past year

You can listen for free on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or at https://emergingcivilwar.com/the-emerging-civil-war-podcast/.

On the YouTube channel…

• Chris Mackowski spoke with Tom Van Winkle, President of the Central Virginia Battlefield Trust, about CVBT's effort to raise $60,000 to commemorate 30 years. Learn more about the fundraising effort here.
• Also check out the recorded livestream of Emerging Civil War: In Discussion featuring Madeline Feierstein with historian and author Michael Giorgianni.

February

7: Ryan Quint, "Dranesville," Longwood University Annual Seminar, Farmville, VA

9: Chris Mackowski, “A Tempest of Iron and Lead: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House,” Raleigh (NC) Civil War Roundtable

10: Neil P. Chatelain, “Defending the Arteries of Rebellion,” Fort Worth (TX) Civil War Round Table

10: Kevin C. Donovan, “Is the Pope Catholic (or Confederate)? Examining Pius IX’s Diplomatic Attitudes Towards the Belligerents During the Civil War,” at the Roanoke (VA) CWRT

11: Melissa Winn, “When This You See Remember Me: Portrait Photography and the Civil War,” Civil War Round Table of Lynchburg, Lynchburg, VA

17: Curt Fields, Scottsdale CWRT, Scottsdale, AZ

17: Chris Kolakowski, Stones River talk to the Twin Cities CWRT

19: Curt Fields, The Museum of the West, Scottsdale, AZ

25: Jon-Erik Gilot, “Dangerfield Newby’s Fight for Freedom,” Puskarich Public Library, Cadiz, OH

28: Curt Fields, 4th Annual Civil War Symposium, Dover, TN

March

5: Brian Kowell, “The Life of William R. Hoel: Mississippi Pilot and Acting Volunteer Lieutenant, U.S.N.”, North Ft. Myers CWRT

6: Neil P. Chatelain, “Light Keeper Manuel Moreno: Conflicting Loyalties Amidst Secession and Civil War,” Louisiana Historical Association annual conference, Lafayette, LA

7: Curt Fields, Mid-South Military History and Civil War Show, Southaven, MS

8: Chris Mackowski, “Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution,” Adams County Historical Society, Gettysburg, PA

10: Caroline Davis, "The H. L. Hunley," Clarksburg Civil War Roundtable

11: Jon-Erik Gilot, “Hunter’s Retreat from Lynchburg,” Tuscarawas Valley CWRT, Dover, OH 

14: Melissa Winn, “Clara Barton and the Missing Soldiers Office Museum,” John Marshall Library, Fairfax, VA

14: Chris Kolakowski, Virginia 1862 Campaigns to the Louisville CWRT

15: Doug Crenshaw, Williamsburg: Cold Harbor

17: Evan Portman, “Joshua Chamberlain: the Man, the Myth, the Legend,” Mason Dixon Civil War Roundtable, Morganton, WV

18: Jon-Erik Gilot, “Hunter’s Retreat from Lynchburg,” Western PA CWRT, Sewickley, PA

18: Evan Portman, “A Civil War within a Civil War: the New York City Draft Riots,” Phil Kearny Civil War Round Table, Virtual Presentation

19: Curt Fields, “Unconditional Surrender: Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War,” American Civil War Museum, Richmond, VA

19: Chris Mackowski, “Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution,” Holland Land Office Museum, Batavia, NY

21: Chris Mackowski, “Strike Them a Blow: Battle Along the North Anna River,” CVBT Spring Seminar

24: Curt Fields, Arkansas CWRT, Little Rock, AR

25: Curt Fields, MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, Little Rock, AR

25: Jon-Erik Gilot, “A Neglected Campaign: Loring’s Offensive in the Kanawha Valley, September 1862” Ohio Valley CWRT, Wheeling, WV

27-29: Curt Fields, “General Grant’s innovations as a military commander in the Civil War,” Virginia Tech’s annual Civil War Weekend, Blacksburg, VA