SVBF Civil War Roundtable

The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation’s Civil War Roundtable is currently holding virtual meetings online using the Zoom platform.

Members of the roundtable will be sent an email with a link and login information before each meeting.  If you’re interested in taking part in the meetings but aren’t already a member, you can sign up for the roundtable by completing and submitting the form below.

Membership in the roundtable is open to everyone.  To be added to the e-mail list for the group, fill out the form below or call the SVBF at 540-740-4545.  For more information, call 540-740-4545 or email info@svbf.net.

Next Meeting

Date and Time:  Thursday, March 18, 2021, at 7:30 pm
Guest speaker:  Mark H. Dunkelman
Topic: “Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier: The Life, Death, and Celebrity of Amos Humiston”

Zoom Log-In Information

This meeting will be conducted online using the Zoom platform.  The log-in information will be posted here closer to the meeting.

About the Speaker and the Program:

The unique approach Mark H. Dunkelman has taken to the study of Civil War history dates from his childhood, when his father and aunt passed along stories and relics of their grandfather, with whom they had grown up on a farm in Western New York. Those tales and mementoes of Corporal John Langhans of the 154th New York Volunteer Infantry gripped Mark with a passion to learn more about his great-grandfather’s regiment that has never abated. During a lifetime of study, he has had the good fortune to connect with more than 1,300 descendants of members of the 154th New York. Since 1986 he has organized annual reunions of the descendants in Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties, where the regiment was raised. In 1988, an 80-feet-long mural Mark designed and painted with artist Johan Bjurman was installed at Coster Avenue in Gettysburg, site of the 154th’s fight on July 1, 1863. In 1996 Mark led the regimental descendants in raising funds and erecting a monument to their ancestors at Chancellorsville, Virginia, the 154th’s bloodiest battlefield. In five decades of work, Mark has located and copied more than 1,700 wartime letters, 27 diaries, portraits of 281 members of the regiment, and a great mass of other material. Those sources have served as the basis for six well-received books and dozens of articles he has written on various aspects of the 154th’s history. His second book, Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier: The Life, Death, and Celebrity of Amos Humiston, has been lauded by leading historians as the definitive account of one of the Civil War’s best-known human interest stories—a story that upended the lives of the Humiston family. Originally published in 1999, the book came out in 2020 as a paperback by Gettysburg Publishing. In his talk “Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier,” Mark will relate the amazing set of circumstances that enabled him to write the book.

To purchase a copy of Gettysburg’s Unknown Soldier, click here.

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