Everyone is welcome at our monthly meetings

NOTICE: We're meeting at the Blossom Cafe Restaurant, 8349 West Lawrence, Norridge, for 2025-26.


June 12th
Alex Rossino on "Before September: The Origin of the 1862 Maryland Campaign"

History records the September 1862 Confederate operation in Maryland as a military campaign designed and initiated solely by General Robert E. Lee, but what if Lee's crossing of the Potomac River had been planned much further in advance? In addition, what if the motives for the invasion commonly ascribed to Lee are only partially correct? In this talk, Dr. Alex Rossino provides extensive evidence documenting the true origin of Lee's Maryland operation in the summer of 1861, and the role in its evolution played by other key individuals, such as Confederate President Jefferson Davis, General Joe Johnston, and General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. The result is a re-evaluation of the origin of the 1862 Maryland Campaign that reveals Lee's actual reasons for crossing the Potomac and clarifies the invasion's place in the development of Confederate grand strategy during the first year and a half of the American Civil War.

A resident of historic Charles Town, West Virginia, Dr. Alex Rossino is an independent historian and author. He earned Master's and Doctoral degrees in History at Syracuse University before working for nine years as a historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Dr. Rossino turned his attention to the American Civil War in 2011 and after several years of research, he produced Six Days in September: A Novel of Lee's Army in Maryland, September 1862. The book proved to be popular among historians and enthusiasts alike, leading to a sequel titled The Guns of September: A Novel of McClellan's Army in Maryland, September 1862, which came out in September 2024. Dr. Rossino also returned to writing history, producing Their Maryland: The Army of Northern Virginia from the Potomac Crossing to Sharpsburg in September 1862 and co-authoring with Gene Thorp The Tale Untwisted: General George B. McClellan, The Maryland Campaign, and the Discovery of Lee's Lost Orders, which came out in January 2023. His most recent history, Calamity at Frederick: Robert E. Lee, Special Orders No. 191, and Confederate Misfortune on the Road to Antietam (October 2023), completed his in-depth study of the Lost Orders saga from the Confederate perspective, along with an ebook on the document's handwriting to identify the author, titled, Who Wrote the Lost Copy of Robert E. Lee's Special Orders No. 191: A Handwriting Analysis Companion to Calamity at Frederick in October 2025.

For our 2025-2026 program year, we proudly welcome these outstanding speakers:

Sept. 12th: James Pula on "Dan Butterfield"
Oct. 10th: Kim Harris as "Libby Custer"
Nov. 14th: Chris Kolakowski on "Civil War to World War: Simon Bolivar Buckner Sr. and Jr."
Dec. 12th: Brian Jordan on "Marching Home: Union Veterans and Their Unending Civil War"
Jan. 9th, 2026: Guy Fraker on "Lincoln the Lawyer"
Feb. 13th: Keith Bohannon on "Wheeler's Cavalry in the Atlanta Campaign"
Mar. 13th: Clifford Roberts on "Castle Pinckney"
Apr. 10th: Wayne Motts, The Nevins-Freeman Address
May 8th: Chris Mackowski on "A Tempest of Iron and Lead: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House"
June 12th: Alex Rossino on "Before September: The Origin of the 1862 Maryland Campaign"

Our meetings are held at: