Thursday, April 18, 2013 (8 AM to 5 PM)
Led by Dr. Thomas Clemens
Leaving from the Eisenhower Hotel and Conference Center, Gettysburg, PA
Tour Registration Fee:  $155.00

America’s History’s fourth annual tour for the Company of Military Historians will focus on Lee’s first invasion of the North which ended with the battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War. You do not need to be a member of the Company to attend this tour. We are fortunate to have engaged Tom Clemens, known as “Mr. Antietam” for his scholarship, preservation efforts and guiding skills, to lead our one-day tour of the battlefield.

While Gettysburg has been termed the Confederacy’s “High Water Mark,” the battle at Antietam Creek is acknowledged by many historians as the South’s real chance to win the war.

This full day tour will include all the major sites you have read about: the North Woods, Miller’s Cornfield, the West Woods, Dunker Church, the Sunken Road or “Bloody Lane” and Burnside’s Bridge.

During our drive from Gettysburg to Sharpsburg, Maryland, Tom will discuss the strategic situation in the east in the early fall of 1862 as well as the major personalities involved in this campaign. We will follow the action as Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker initiates the Union army’s attack from the North Woods. You’ll tramp the Miller Cornfield where Hood’s Texas Brigade won everlasting glory. We’ll also go to the site where Confederate artillery was massed to turn back the Federal attacks which Confederate Col. Stephen D. Lee later termed “Artillery Hell.” You will stand in the Sunken Road, bravely defended by Alabamians, Georgians and North Carolinians against attacks by such famed units as the Irish Brigade. And you’ll walk across Rohrbach’s Bridge, now immortalized as Burnside’s Bridge, where Union IX Corps troops sought to roll up Lee’s right. We’ll also take you to some little known and seldom-seen parts of the battlefield which will give you a truly unique battlefield experience.

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Wednesday, June 12 (7:30pm)-Saturday, June 15 (5pm)
Fredericksburg, VA
Led by A. Wilson “Will” Greene
Tour Registration: $495.00

Spring 1864 found the great armies of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Union Maj. Gen George G. Meade facing each other along the Rapidan River. But that situation would soon change as a new man from the western theater, Lt. Gen Ulysses S. Grant took command of all Federal armies. Grant would be in the field, not at a desk in Washington; Meade would have to adapt to a new command structure. Grant had set his sights on Lee’s army. He was out to destroy the fabled Army of Northern Virginia and in the course of time capture Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy.

Our tour will focus on the Overland Campaign from April to June 1864 and include all the major engagements and some lesser known ones as well. Our tour leader, Will Greene has previously led two tours for America’s History. He has garnered a reputation for putting all things in perspective: strategy, tactics, command decisions, personalities, human interest stories and “what if” scenarios. His knowledge and sense of humor make him one of the most popular Civil War historians leading tours today.

We’ll start our tour on Thursday at the Wilderness battlefield, where the opening round of a bloody slugfests began. We’ve allotted a full day to understanding what happened at the Wilderness. We’ll stop at Saunders Field where a seesaw fight erupted on May 5. Some of the heaviest combat of the battle occurred in the fields surrounding the Higgerson House. You’ll also see the Chewing Farm which was occupied by both armies during the battle. A highlight of the Wilderness battlefield is the Widow Tapp Farm where Lt. Gen. James Longstreet rescued Lee’s army from disaster. One of the “Lee to the rear” incidents occurred during the Tapp Farm fighting. You’ll also see where Longstreet was wounded by “friendly fire.” And we’ll visit “Ellwood,” an 18th century home that served as headquarters for Maj. Gen. Gouverneur Warren. Spending a day at the Wilderness will give you an appreciation for why it is important to continue the fight to save land on this battlefield.

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Thursday, August 22 (7:30pm)-Saturday, August 24 (5pm)
Led by William Welsch & Bruce Venter
Tour Registration: $325.00

Benedict Arnold’s plot to sell West Point to the British in 1780 is undoubtedly the most famous story associated with the Revolutionary War in New York’s lower Hudson River Valley region. But many other events occurred during the period 1777 thru 1783. These environs teemed with Patriots, Redcoats and Tories who played the part of heroes, spies and scoundrels during the war.

On Friday morning our first stop will be Fort Montgomery, the site of British General Sir Henry Clinton’s successful attack on American forces in 1777. This stop will complete the story of the British campaign of 1777 for those who have been with us on the Saratoga and Mohawk Valley tours. From Fort Montgomery, we will travel to the Stony Point battlefield, where General “Mad Anthony” Wayne staged his surprise nighttime attack on an unsuspecting British garrison in July 1779.

Lunch will be at the historic ’76 House in Tappan, where British Major John Andre, Arnold’s youthful co-conspirator, was held prisoner before being hanged on orders from General George Washington. After lunch you’ll see the Dutch church where Andre’s trial was held and the site of his execution.

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Wednesday, September 11 (7:30pm)-Saturday, September 14 (5pm)
Led by Douglas Cubbison
Tour Registration: $495.00

The astute observer of 18th century events and British Whig politician, Horace Walpole observed, “The volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire.” Walpole’s words ring true. The Virginian he was referring to was, of course, a 22-year old militia major named George Washington. Washington’s actions in western Pennsylvania are credited with starting the French and Indian War in America. Besides George Washington, Braddock’s Campaign of 1755 will introduce many personalities who became famous during the American Revolution: Daniel Morgan, Daniel Boone, Thomas Gage, Charles Lee, Adam Stephen and Horatio Gates.

On Thursday morning our tour will start at Jumonville Glen, a seldom visited site where Washington’s militia and his “ally,” a Seneca chief named “Half King” ambushed a sleepy French force under Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. This site is truly pristine and the story of Washington’s first military action will unfold at this off-the-beaten track locale. Our next stop will be the reconstructed palisades of Fort Necessity which Washington built after defeating the French. It was in the “Great Meadows” that the young Virginian met his first defeat as a military commander. Fort Necessity has a very fine museum and book store. In the afternoon we will visit the ruins of Fort Cumberland located at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church where the fort’s walls are visible within the church’s basement. After leaving Cumberland, Maryland we’ll drive along Braddock’s route and see some of his army’s campsites. Our last stop of the day will be the Great Crossings of the Youghiogheny River.

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Friday, September 20  (8am-5pm)
Led by Douglas R. Cubbison
In conjunction with the 10th Annual American Revolution Seminar meeting at Fort Ticonderoga
Tour Registration: $125

America’s History is proud to announce a new partnership with the Fort Ticonderoga Association whereby we’ll offer a one-day tour of the early stages of British Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne’s campaign of 1777. Led by noted author and historian, Doug Cubbison, we will visit many sites important to this campaign including Mount Defiance, Mount Hope, Burgoyne’s lines around Fort Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Hubbardton battlefield and Skenesborough Harbor (present-day Whitehall.)

During the summer and fall of 1777, one of the great military campaigns of world history was fought in the dense forests and rolling fields of upstate New York and Vermont. John “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne led a combined force of some 9,000 British Redcoats, German hirelings, vengeful Tories and blood-thirsty Indians. This army descended from Canada, aiming to cut off the American middle colonies from their New England neighbors.

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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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