Thursday, October 31 (7:30pm)-Saturday, November 2 (5pm)
Winston-Salem, NC
Led by Chris Hartley
Tour Registration: $295

In March 1865, in a driving rainstorm, Federal Maj. Gen. George Stoneman led a column of some four thousand blue cavalrymen out of Knoxville, Tennessee. They rode eastward, launching a cavalry raid that would take them deep into the heart of the Confederacy. Over the next two months, Stoneman’s cavalry galloped across six Southern states, fighting fierce skirmishes with Confederate forces and destroying enemy supplies and facilities. When the raid finally ended, Stoneman’s troopers had brought the war home to dozens of communities that had not seen it up close before. In the process, the cavalrymen pulled off one of the longest cavalry raids in U.S. military history, and left behind an impact that still echoes in The Band’s 1969 hit recording, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Stoneman’s 1865 raid was so vast it would difficult to cover the entire span in two days. But it is possible to understand the raid by focusing on one area. Yankee troopers rode through the Piedmont of North Carolina in early April. In this tour, we will visit sites in the Piedmont area that figured prominently in Stoneman’s operation.

On Friday morning we’ll visit Moody’s Tavern, Moratock Iron Furnace and Old Salem, a historical community which looks much like it did in 1865 when a brigade of Stoneman’s raiders briefly made its headquarters there. In Salem the town square, Home Moravian Church, Blum Printers, the Single Sisters House and the Boner House, sites of both drama and levity, will be interpreted. We’ll also visit the Moravian Cemetery. We’ll have lunch at the historic Salem Tavern. After lunch, we’ll visit Mendenhall Plantation and Store to understand the action at Jamestown. You’ll also see the Jamestown Mill, Jamestown Depot site and the gun factory sites.

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Thursday, May 31 (5:30PM) to Sunday, June 3, 2012  (4:00pm)
Led by Horace Mewborn, Scott Mauger, Rick Britton and Bruce Venter
Based in Richmond, VA
Tour Registration Fee: $475.00

In the Eastern theatre, the names Jeb Stuart and Wade Hampton evoke images of fabled Confederate cavalry successes against their Union opponents. Our tour will highlight some of these classic operations with the chance to walk a number of private property sites, not accessible to the general public.

In Stuart’s Ride around McClellan’s Army of the Potomac in 1862 we will visit Hickory Hill, the Wickham family home (private property) where Stuart stopped the night of June 12 to visit Williams Wickham who was recuperating from a battlefield wound. Then it’s on to historic Hanover Court House where the Gray Cavalier ran into a detachment of Federal cavalry. As we follow Stuart’s plume, we’ll have a chance to stop at the site of the 1864 cavalry battle of Haws Shop. Returning to Stuart’s ride we will see many sites associated with it like Linney’s Corner, Old Church, Tunstall’s Station, Garlick’s Landing, Talleysville, Forge Bridge, Charles City Court House and Rowland’s Mill where Stuart stopped for a cup of coffee. As we return to the hotel we’ll come past Yellow Tavern, the battle site where Stuart was mortally wounded in 1864.

We’ll begin Hampton’s 1864 Beefsteak Raid at Violet Bank, Robert E. Lee’s headquarters during the Petersburg siege where he and the South Carolinian discussed the raid. From there, we’ll see Wilkinson’s Bridge where Hampton crossed Rowanty Creek, then stop at Belsches’ Mill where he picked up his guide for the raid. We’ll also see Cook’s Bridge, Laurel Springs, Sycamore Church where Tom Rosser attacked the 1st D. C. Cavalry and the Harrison Farm site where the cattle were corralled. We will stop at Edmund Ruffin’s Farm (private property) where his old house still stands. We’ll see Cocke’s Mill, the site of James Dearing’s defensive position against a Federal effort to retrieve the herd and the Donnan House site where Hampton’s aide gave a captured cow to 12 year old Margaret Donnan. We’ll go to Hawkinsville where cattle crossed the Jerusalem Plank Road while Tom Rosser blocked the road at Ebenezer Church, Freeman’s Ford where the cattle crossed the Nottoway River and the intersection of the Boydton Plank and White Oak roads where the herd was penned after reaching Confederate lines.

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Wednesday, June 27 (7:30PM) to Saturday, June 30, 2012  (5:00pm)
Led by Dan Tortora
Based in Cherokee, NC
Tour Registration Fee: $425.00

The French and Indian War in the South had taken a back seat to more well-known events that occurred in New York and Pennsylvania. Our Defending the Southern Frontier: The Cherokee War of 1759-61 will remedy that shortcoming.

By 1760 the fate of the British colonies in North America was determined by the capture of Quebec. But in the South, the Cherokee Indians continued a war against South Carolina and British troops. The war was the result of a corrupt deerskin trade and other longstanding Cherokee grievances, a collapse in the Cherokee-British military alliance, and bungled diplomacy by South Carolina’s colonial governor. The “peace,” if you could call it that, left festering tensions on all sides which would influence the coming American Revolution. Focusing on the Middle and Overhill Cherokee villages, we will discuss the scope of the southern theater in the French and Indian War by visiting a number famous and some lesser known sites.

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Wednesday, August 1 (7:30PM) to Saturday, August 4, 2012  (5:00pm)
Led by Ed Bearss, Horace Mewborn and Bob O’Neill
Based in Leesburg, VA
Tour Registration Fee: $495.00

Ever since the Gettysburg campaign ended, participants, historians and Civil War enthusiasts have debated the results of Jeb Stuart’s ride to Gettysburg, placing blame, on one hand, or exonerating the “Bold Dragoon” on the other hand, for his decisions. Some have said Stuart’s delay in reaching the Confederate army in Pennsylvania may have cost General Robert E. Lee the battle. Others contend Stuart’s absence made little difference in the military scheme of things. Our “Jeb Stuart in the Gettysburg Campaign” tour will try to sort out these issues by retracing the steps the Gray Cavalier took once he left his commander on June 24, 1863. We will cover Stuart’s ride, his contribution to the battle itself, his part in Lee’s retreat and the ongoing controversy surrounding his performance. Our analysis will include the facts, the geography, the myths and the unanswered questions about Stuart’s decisions.

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Wednesday, August 22 (7:30pm) to Saturday, August 24, 2012 (5:00pm
Led by Edward Lengel and William Welsch

“Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery.”

These words of Washington on the National Memorial Arch describe the suffering the Continental Army endured at Valley Forge. Our Howe vs. Washington tour will trace the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777 from Washington’s defeat at Brandywine through the army’s march out of Valley Forge heading to its success at Monmouth in June, 1778.

In the summer of 1777, British General William Howe launched what he believed would be the decisive campaign of the war. His goal was to capture Philadelphia, capital of the new nation. On our first day we will begin with a visit to Brandywine battlefield, where the British decisively defeated Washington’s army on September 11, 1777. We will start with the beginning action at Kennett Meeting House, tracing the diversionary attack on Washington’s position at Chad’s Ford. Next we’ll visit the British flanking position at Osborne’s Hill; then it’s on to Birmingham Meeting House, where the battle culminated. In the afternoon, we’ll visit the site of Fort Billings, a fortification in New Jersey used to prevent the British navy from communicating with Philadelphia. We’ll also visit Fort Mercer, an excellent site where American troops defeated a Hessian force under Colonel Carl von Donop on October 22.

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Wednesday, September 5 (7:30PM) to Saturday, September 8, 2012  (5:00pm)
Led by Thomas Cartwright
Based in Franklin, TN
Tour Registration Fee: $475.00

Admirers of Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest are legion. Many Civil War enthusiasts would say he belongs in any pantheon of great Southern military leaders. This skilled battlefield tactician, cavalry leader and raider evoked controversy during the war and in the aftermath of reconstruction. He was a truly larger than life individual.

Our tour will explore Forrest’s exploits in middle Tennessee where you’ll see some familiar battlefields and many little-known sites thru the eyes of one of the most knowledgeable and zealous historians of the “Wizard of the Saddle,” the incomparable Thomas Y. Cartwright.

On our first day we will travel to Fort Donelson, the site where Forrest first distinguished himself. The Gray cavalryman not only captured a Union artillery battery, but broke Grant’s siege by leading nearly 4,000 men out of Confederate lines, across the Cumberland River, before the fort was surrendered, trapping another 15,000 soldiers. This daring deed made Forrest an instant hero in the South. We will have adequate time to explore the Fort Donelson battlefield.

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