Everyone is welcome at our monthly meetings

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


May 8th
Chris Mackowski on "A Tempest of Iron and Lead: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House"

For twenty-two straight hours, in torrential downpours, up to their knees in mud and blood, Federals and Confederates slugged it out in the most intense sustained hand-to-hand combat of the war. A panoply of horror, one soldier called it. A Saturnalia of blood. Hell's Half-Acre. The slaughter pen of Spotsylvania. Most remember it simply as the Bloody Angle.

Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Emerging Civil War and the series editor of the award-winning Emerging Civil War Series, published by Savas Beatie. Chris is a writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, NY, where he also serves as associate dean for undergraduate programs. Chris is also historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania battlefield in central Virginia. He has worked as a historian for the National Park Service at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, where he gives tours at four major Civil War battlefields (Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania), as well as at the building where Stonewall Jackson died. Chris has authored or co-authored nearly two dozen books and edited a half-dozen essay collections on the Civil War, and his articles have appeared in all the major Civil War magazines.

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 "Confederate Plans for Maryland"

Our meetings are held at: