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February 15 - The Gettysburg Conference on World War II is all set and ready for your participation. See the post on our 2010 Calendar of Events - March 18-20. Our guest speaker at our Saturday evening banquet will be Alexander Jefferson of the Tuskegee Airmen. His riveting tale is sketched out in this clip from an NPR article of a few years ago -
Click Here for Link
We hope you'll join us.
January 31 – Wow, what great adventures we had in Sarasota! For both the 18th Annual Sarasota Civil War Symposium and the 5th Annual Sarasota World War II Conference the weather was wonderful, the presentations were great, the food was good, the attendees and speakers were happy and revved, and it’s hard to think how things could have been better!
Planning is already underway for next year’s Sarasota meetings and Ed Bearss may have a tour for us to be staged in between the two meetings. In the meantime, we are getting ready to start the long drive north to Virginia, into the snowdrifts.
January 13 – We’ve added a tour – Chancellorsville, April 10-11, led by Bob Krick, featuring the first-ever group walk of the newly preserved Wagner Tract. Early discounts are available.
January 13 – The weather forecast for Sarasota, Florida for the period of our two upcoming meetings there shows an average daily high temperature of 72 degrees! Come and join us!
December 31 – Happy New Year - and may your bowl team win (unless it’s Oregon).
November 17 – Our 2009 program season came to a close Sunday afternoon at Fort Nonsense, high above Morristown, New Jersey.
What a year it’s been! We’ll tell you all about it in the forthcoming 2009 Year in Review report. We’ll send this, by regular mail in the next two weeks, to all of you who are ensconced in our database. If you aren’t sure whether or not you are in our database, please send an e-mail containing your full name and mailing address, to cwea@earthlink.net and put SEND REPORT in the subject line.
The report will also have new information about our 2010 programs, and an advance look at some portions of our 2011 calendar of events. Stay tuned.
October 28 – Our two annual adventures based in Sarasota, Florida are all ready to go. Please see the 2010 Calendar of Events for complete information on both of these. Each team of historians is a terrific one! Take a look and see what you think. And then, book your flights and call the Helmsley Sandcastle Hotel and reserve your rooms. Take a respite from winter and Come to Sarasota!
October 28 - We’ve added a Gettysburg tour to the 2010 schedule – to be led by Ed Bearss – on Friday, February 26 (yes February). Please note that we have another Gettysburg tour, led by Gary Kross, on Saturday, February 27. Make a weekend of it. We’ll do our best to keep you warm with hot coffee and hot chocolate during both tours. On Friday night our headquarters will be O’Rorke’s, long revered as a warm up station.
The two February tour themes are:
Friday, February 26:
Saturday, February 27:
Start your tour season early this coming year. Wear layers of clothes, bring a knit cap and gloves, and we’ll do the rest to keep you warm. Besides, there’s warmth in shared suffering – and surely, as we battle the elements, Ed and Gary will treat us with the sensitivity and care that we deserve!?#
October 28 – Some high quality tour leading has occurred since last we posted a What’s New:
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at South Mountain and Antietam, Mike Priest walked us over hill & dale
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at Chickamauga and Chattanooga, Chris Kolakowski held sway
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Gary Ecelbarger served up a five-day tour-de-force of Jackson’s 1862 Valley Campaign
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Meanwhile, Gary Kross led us through the rain, up and over Culp’s Hill
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and Robert E. L. Krick took our group to sites seldom seen in and around Richmond.
>And the beat goes on – next up are Montgomery/Selma; New Orleans and the Deep Delta; the inaugural New Jersey Conference on the American Revolution; and the Revolutionary War tour of the Battles of Morristown and Springfield. Then after a few weeks off, we head to SARASOTA!!
September 28 - In a few days, we’re going to start the promotional push for the Sarasota Civil War Symposium and the Sarasota World War II Conference. We hope you will begin to make plans now to attend what has come to be regarded at the leading Civil War symposium in America, and one of the best (if not the best) World War II conference. As teasers, here are a few of the talk titles for each:
Sarasota Civil War – January 20-23:
Charles Roland – Slavery and Secession in the Eyes of a Contemporary Southern Moderate
Jeff Wert – J. E. B. Stuart: The Civil War’s Finest Horse Soldier
Gary Ecelbarger – How Abraham Lincoln Won the 1860 Republican Nomination
Dale Phillips - Blood on the Red: The Red River Campaign of 1864
Robert K. Krick – General Roswell S. Ripley: “…A big fat whiskey drinking loving man”
William C. “Jack” Davis – Numbers, Nonsense, and Secession
Also presenting will be Ed Bearss, Terry Winschel and Joe Glatthaar
Sarasota World War II – January 27-30:
Jerry Morelock – The Battle of the Bulge: Myths and Realities of America’s Greatest Battle
Richard McMurry – The Great American Battleship: Its History and Role in World War II
Michael Pearlman – Unconditional Surrender: Demobilization and the Atomic Bomb
Craig Symonds - The Battle of Midway and the Flight to Nowhere
Len Fullenkamp - Operation Husky and the Battle for Sicily
Ivan Hammond – 36 Days on Iowa Jima – Ivan was there for all 36!
Hal Baumgarten – D-Day: The Weather was our Ally – Hal was wounded 5 times on June 6, 1944 during the landing on Omaha Beach
Also presenting will be Rob Dalessandro, our Head of Faculty, Carlo D’Este, and Ed Bearss.
Stay tuned for the promotional roll-out.
September 21 – Bob Baker, Gettysburg Licensed Guide, was in rare form (standard form for him) on Saturday just passed, as he led us on a tour of Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade at Gettysburg. Thorough, comprehensive, detailed, supported by a great map package – the tour was another home run for Bob. Program #405 is in the books and we continue on. Next stop: SouthMountain & Antietam with John M. Priest
September 17 - Last week's 1862 New Mexico Campaign tour was spectacular. We had a terrific group of smart and funny-loving men and women and were led in an excellent fashion by the indefatigable Art Candenquist with assistance from Art's jolly spouse, Cindy.
The key sites we visited were Fort Craig, Valverde, Socorro, Albuquerque, Fort Union, Glorieta Pass and Apache Canyon. In addition, we took time to visit some unforgettable places in the Santa Fe area - the Loretta Chapel, the Chapel of San Miguel, the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture and, north of Santa Fe, the Bandolier National Monument where once dwelled tribes of the Anazasi in cliff side caves. Of course, we had to enjoy lunch on one of the days at the legendary Owl Bar & Cafe, in the tiny burg of San Antonio, New Mexico, and most of us partook of the entree that makes the Owl properly famous - the green chili cheeseburger.
We hope to return to New Mexico in 2011. Maybe you can join us then, and sample for yourself a succulent green chili cheeseburger.
August 24 – We had an incredible trek through the Wilderness with Robert K. Krick this past weekend including a 3.5 mile walk during a driving rain on Saturday, and a madcap 1.5 mile thrash through underbrush and brambles on Sunday. Somehow, the rigor provided inspiration, and thus we’ve added the sequel to our 2010 schedule: Spotsylvania: A Walking Tour – August 28-29, 2010. If you enjoy the vigorous (or rigorous), type of tour, this one should suit you!
All joking aside, the Wilderness tour was fabulous. And next year’s Spotsylvania tour should be too.
July 29 – It was almost too good to be true – the recently completed Abraham Lincoln: Prelude to Greatness conference & tour. Masterfully designed by Gary Ecelbarger and skillfully moderated by Bob Lenz, it featured fine presentations by Dan Stowell, Mark Plummer, Roger Bridges, Guy Fraker, and Bob Lenz, a spellbinding portrayal of Lincoln by George Buss, a moving banquet speech by Frank J. Williams and a unique, detailed tour of Lincoln on the Eighth Judicial Circuit by Guy Fraker. Plus, we got to visit the fairly new and stunning Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library, the Lincoln-Herndon Law Office, the Lincoln Home, the Old State Capitol and the Lincoln Tomb.
The food was good, the weather was great and a rosy glow seemed to hover above our proceedings. And best of all, the attendees, to the last man and woman, were terrific. Thanks to all for making our 401st outing one of the most wonderfully memorable!
July 29 – Near perfect, too, was our 400th outing – Gettysburg: The Struggle for Sickles Line, led by the wunderkind, Zack Fry, and the venerable warhorse, Gary Kross. At the ripe old age of 22, Zack has now co-led seven tours for the CWEA, each with his mentor, Gary Kross. The two make a brilliant pair, and we advise you to look ahead to next year when they are next paired – in the 5th Annual All-Star Tour of Gettysburg, June 11-13, 2010.
July 10 - We’ve added a Book Reviews section. Please click through the button on your right.
July 10 – If you’re thinking about attending the Sickles at Gettysburg tour next week and/or the Abraham Lincoln Conference & Tour in Springfield the following week, please let us know – call 800-298-1861 or e-mail to cwea@earthlink.net. We’re preparing our packages and tallying our meal counts. Join us!
July 8 – The 2010 Calendar of Events and Early Bird Discount Offer are now fully posted on this site. We spared you the twirling dervish and strutting peacock graphics and are relying solely on your critical judgment and fundamental frugality to sort through all of it and conclude that there are some very exciting programs and substantial savings available. In some cases, these include Perks. You can learn about the latter by clicking through on a new button we’ve put up called Featured Programs.
We hope you’ll plan now to join us in 2010 (and of course, as many times as possible in the second half of this year). Keep thinking about us, please.
July 1 – OK, all of our 2010 Calendar Posts are now up. We hope that you will like what you see. And you should really like the substantial discounts for 2010 programs that will be posted by the end of this week.
June 29 – We have six or seven of our 2010 programs still to post. This should be completed on July 1 and then we’ll be ready to unveil the Early Bird promotional offer.
June 19 – We’ve begun to put up the list of 2010 programs – see the 2010 Calendar section. We expect to have the complete list up by July 1 - and the Early Bird Discount Offer too
June 19 – Last week’s All-Star Tour of Gettysburg was a wonderful success. Gary Kross assembled a terrific team – Charlie Fennell, Sue Boardman, Jay Jorgensen, Phil Lechak and Dean Schultz. The Saturday night barbecue dinner at the home of Roger & Lynn Heller was perfect. Everything clicked. We’ll put up more coverage later as participants send in their evaluations.
June 10 – Our first New Jersey Conference on the American Revolution is all set for Saturday, November 14, and ready for your enrollment. Check it out Here. And we’ve added a tour of Morristown and Springfield the following day – Sunday, November 15. Click Here to read all about the tour.
June 10 – We have put in place a series of Advance Enrollment Discounts, as a part of our own “Stimulus” package. The first program to which they apply is the “How To Conduct Civil War Research” workshop in August with Mike Musick and Bob Krick. These discounts apply to programs from August to November as shown in the 2009 Calendar section.
June 10 – Change of Dates - The Gettysburg World War II Conference will be held October 8-10, 2009. Previously it had been scheduled for August. Full details will be posted soon. It’s gonna be a good one – maybe even as good as the Sarasota WWII Conference!
June 10 – Our big push now is the Abraham Lincoln: Prelude to Greatness Conference & Tour in Springfield, Illinois. Click Here to read about it, and if you determine that you’d like to attend only a part of it, call us at 800-298-1861 and we’ll pro-rate the registration fee as appropriate. |
