A one-day symposium featuring:

Mary DeCredico: Dr. DeCredico is Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. DeCredico graduated in 1981 from Bucknell University with a bachelor of arts, magna cum laude, with honors in history. She received a master of arts in American history from Vanderbilt University, and earned a Ph.D. in Southern history from Vanderbilt in 1986. She is the author of Mary Boykin Chesnut: A Confederate Woman's Life (1998) and is currently researching Confederate Richmond. Dr. DeCredico has appeared on C-SPAN-3, on the American History segment. She serves on the Advisory Council, National Civil War Museum and is a member of the National Sesquicentennial Civil War Commission.

Lauranett Lee: Dr. Lauranett Lee, a native of Chesterfield County, is Curator of African American History at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. Her recent exhibit topics at the Virginia Historical Society include the Civil Rights Movement in Virginia, enslaved people at Virginia's presidential plantations, and the role of black soldiers during World War II. She has also served as a commentator and/or consultant for radio, television, and community-based projects on black history. Dr. Lee received an M.A. in History from Virginia State University, and a Ph.D. in American History at the University of Virginia. She published Making the American Dream Work: A Cultural History of African American History in Hopewell, Virginia in 2008.

Jeffry D. Wert: Jeff Wert graduated cum laude with a B. A. in History from Lock Haven University in 1968. In 1976, he completed his M. A. in History at Pennsylvania State University. A full time author and historian Wert has written articles for Civil War Times Illustrated, American History Illustrated, Blue & Gray Magazine, America’s Civil War, Military History, Virginia Cavalcade, Pennsylvania History, and the Civil War News. Wert has contributed and edited Historical Times Illustrated’s Encyclopedia of the Civil War. He has written eight books including: From Winchester to Cedar Creek: The Shenandoah Campaign 1864; Mosby’s Rangers; General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier; Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer; A Brotherhood of Valor; Gettysburg, Day Three; The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac; and Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J. E. B. Stuart. His books have won numerous awards, and Gettysburg, Day Three was nominated for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Hunter Lesser: Hunter Lesser, a native West Virginian, is a consulting archaeologist and historical interpreter. His writings on America’s past span topics from ancient Native Americans to Kentucky moonshine stills. A lifelong student of the Civil War, he is the author of Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (Sourcebooks 2004), a History Book Club main selection.

Schedule:
April 16, 2011

Bridgewater College
McKinney Center for Science and Mathematics Room 100
402 E. College St., Bridgewater, VA 22812

9:00am Welcome

9:30-10:30 Mary DeCredico: “Arsenal of the Rebellion: Richmond and its People at War”

10:30-11:00 coffee break

11:00-12:00 Dr. Lauranett Lee: “Exodus—The Movement of a People from Slavery to…”

12:00-1:30pm break for lunch

1:30-2:30 Jeffry Wert: “An Army Born and Reborn”

2:30-2:45 coffee break

2:45-3:45 Hunter Lesser: “The Forgotten First Campaign: Western Virginia, 1861”

3:45-4:00 Closing Remarks

Sessions are free of charge and open to the public

For further information, contact Nick Picerno at 540-828-5761 or
npicerno@bridgewater.edu