Restoring the Importance of Our American History...Understanding it Better
Friday, March 18 (6:30pm) – Sunday, March 20, 2022 (12:30pm)
Tour registration: $306
**Visa, Master Card and Discover accepted. Credit card payments include additional fees.
All previous conference and Great Bridge tour credits will be honored at no additional cost
HQ: Williamsburg, Virginia
Wednesday, April 6 (7:00pm) to Saturday, April 9 (5:00pm), 2022
Headquarters: Glen Allen , VA
Led by: Bruce Venter
Registration Fee: $395.00 Cash or Check – $416.00 Credit Card
On paper, Union Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s plan, approved directly by Lincoln, to release some 13,000 Federal prisoners, “burn the hateful city” of Richmond and capture or kill Confederate President Jefferson Davis, had all the earmarks of success. As one Michigan officer recalled, “The rationale of the raid was a hurried ride, timely arrival, great daring, a surprise, a sudden charge without a moment’s hesitation – success.” Even Confederate cavalry commander Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton felt “the enemy could have taken Richmond” except for some rebel luck. To help Kilpatrick’s command, Brig. Gen. George A. Custer would create a diversion towards Charlottesville, dragging Maj. Gen. Jeb Stuart’s Confederate cavalry away from Kilpatrick’s column. But in execution the Kilpatrick–Dahlgren Raid was a dismal failure; and a major embarrassment to Lincoln when controversial orders were found on the dead body of the expedition’s subordinate commander, the dashing and well-connected Col. Ulric Dahlgren.
Our tour will consider all aspects of the raid’s plan: its execution, the routes taken by Kilpatrick and Dahlgren, Custer’s sideshow operation and the credibility of the infamous “Dahlgren Papers.” We will retrace the raid’s original routes and discuss the decisions, mistakes and happen-stances that affected both the intrepid Federal raiders and the dogged defenders of the Confederate capital. We will focus on the tactical movements of the troops and the decisions made by the commanders on both sides. During most of the tour we will follow the same roads the troopers did in 1864.
June 1 (7pm) to June 4 (5pm), 2022
Led by: Christian DiSpigna with Bruce Venter
HQ: Woburn, MA
Tour Registration: $595.00 Cash or Check – $618.00 Credit Card
Most of us recognize this idealized painting by John Trumbull as depicting the battle of Bunker Hill. The official title of the painting is “The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775.” While the battle is widely known as an important event at the opening of the American Revolution, the centerpiece subject of the painting is largely a forgotten figure. Our tour entitled “The Revolutionary World of Dr. Joseph Warren” aims to change that impression. We will explore many aspects of the life of this underappreciated Founding Father; our tour historian is the leading authority on Warren. This tour will also include many important sites associated with the Revolution in the Boston area, some touched in a major way by Dr. Warren.
On Day 1 we will start in the city of Boston to see how the Revolution evolved over the course of a decade and a half with a special emphasis on Dr. Warren’s experiences. Our first stop will be the Roxbury Latin School which Warren attended before going to Harvard; the school has an original Warren letter. We’ll see Boston Common where British troops encamped prior to their ill-fated excursion to Lexington and Concord; you’ll also see the site of the Boston Massacre site and the Boston Tea Party. Next Faneuil Hall has Warren’s weskit. We’ll drive along Hanover Street where Warren lived, but his homes are now long gone. We will visit the Old South Meeting House (1729) where Warren delivered two Boston Massacre orations and Patriots deliberated before heading to Griffin’s Wharf for a famous tea party in 1773. We’ll finish the day with a visit to the Old North Church where the “two if by sea” lanterns in the belfry signaled Paul Revere on the 18th of April in ’75. Time permitting we’ll walk to Copp’s Hill where General John Burgoyne viewed the battle of Bunker Hill.
Wednesday, September 7, 2022 (7:00pm) to Saturday, September 10, 2022 (5:00pm)
Headquarters: Victor, NY
Led by: Glenn F. Williams
Registration Fee: $550 Cash or Check – $573 Credit Card
The Sullivan-Clinton campaign against the Iroquois in 1779 has been described as implementing a “scorched earth” policy for no useful purpose other than eradicating Indians, or a failed attempt to capture Fort Niagara. No campaign of the American War for Independence has been more inaccurately described or remains more controversial than the Continental Army’s invasion of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1779. This tour is designed to follow the main effort of that offensive as conducted by troops commanded by Major General John Sullivan. Sullivan’s troops took the war to the very heart of the territory controlled by the Six Nations of Haudenosaunee who had allied themselves with the British Crown. At the tour’s end you’ll decide if the campaign was a success or a well-executed failure; justifiable retribution for the raids and Cherry Valley massacre in 1778 or unvarnished genocide.
On our first day will travel to Verona Beach State Park where Wood Creek empties into Lake Oneida to discuss Colonel Goose Van Schaick’s expedition and attack on the Onondaga in April 1779. We’ll visit the Fort Brewerton site in Cicero, a former French and Indian War fort where patriot troops land before marching cross-country to Lake Onondaga and then the site of an Onondaga Town that existed prior to the 18th century at Pompey. After lunch we will visit the Gonandagan State Historic Site with its excellent museum and reconstructed Iroquois longhouse. Here we will focus on the political and military structure of the Six Nations, the decision of four of tribes to side with the British and two to become allies of the United States, with a resulting internal civil war. Gonandagan was a highlight of the tour the last time we did it.
Friday, September 23, 2022 (8:00am to 5:00pm)
Departure: Fort Ticonderoga, NY
Led by: Patrick Niles and Bruce Venter
Registration Fee: $135.00 Cash or Check – $141.00 Credit Card
The 1780 Carleton Raid devastated the present-day New York State counties of Saratoga, Warren, and Washington. It was known as the “Great Burning” because most of the structures along the “Old Military Road” were destroyed. British Maj. Christopher Carleton’s raid was part of a larger strategy that played out across upstate New York and Vermont. Together with Carleton’s raiders, Sir John Johnson swept across the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys, Col. John Munro attacked Ballston Spa, and Lt. Richard Houghton raided Royalton, Vermont during the autumn of 1780.
Ron Chernow’s award-winning biography, Grant, focused renewed literary attention on the man most responsible for leading Union forces to victory during the American Civil War. Ulysses S. Grant rose from obscurity in 1861 to become a national hero by 1865 and three years later, president of the United States. America’s History, LLC is proud to announce the second of a projected four-year study of this pivotal figure, the armies he commanded, and the brave men he opposed: Grant Takes Command, Cairo to Corinth.
As our tour historian, Will Greene has said, “I am very excited to be working with Bruce and Lynne Venter and America’s History, LLC on this program. This year’s tour will follow Vicksburg and Chattanooga Campaigns, all with an eye on Grant’s role in these critical engagements as well as an analysis of the Southern generals who opposed him. I hope you will join me on this year’s trip and look forward to sharing five days of fellowship, good food, and fascinating history with you.” The twelve months between November 1862 and November 1863 marked a critical period in the military history of Ulysses S. Grant. That year witnessed his rise from army commander first to department commander and then overall commander in the Civil War’s western theater. During that time, Grant conducted two of his most famous operations: The Vicksburg Campaign and the Battles for Chattanooga. The second of our four-part series exploring Grant’s Civil War career will examine these two complex campaigns that laid the groundwork for Grant’s eventual promotion to general-in-chief of all United States armies.
Edward G. Lengel – Head of Faculty
Michael Gabriel– “Physician Soldier: The South Pacific Letters of Captain Fred Gabriel from the 39th Station Hospital”
Leah Garrett – “X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War II”
Alex Kershaw – “Against All Odds: Four Medal of Honor Recipients in World War II”
John McManus – “Island Infernos: The US Army’s Pacific War Odyssey, 1944”
Charles Neimeyer– “The U.S. Marines at Guadalcanal, 1942″
Daniel O’Keefe – “One Day in August: Canada’s Tragedy at Dieppe, 1942”
James M. Scott – “Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb”
Craig Symonds – “Leyte Gulf: The Greatest Naval Battle Ever Fought”
Flint Whitlock – “First to Fight: The Big Red One in North Africa”
