Speaker: Gene Schmiel

Presented by the Lifelong Learning Institute, Manassas

This event is open to the public. For more information about the Lifelong Learning Institute, Manassas, visit  lli-manassas.org

The four years of Civil War, 1861–1865, saw Virginians take leadership roles on both sides. Virginian Winfield Scott was the Union’s General-in-Chief, and Virginian Robert E. Lee would be the same for the Confederacy. Virginian Francis Pierpont would lead the effort to create West Virginia, and Virginian Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson would fight valiantly to hold the allegiance of that region for the Confederacy. More battles were fought in Virginia than in any other state, beginning with the First Battle of Bull Run, just a few miles from the Hylton Center. This discussion will cover these and other men and women who were central figures in the American Iliad.

Gene Schmiel is a retired U.S. Department of State foreign service officer who was also an assistant professor of history at St. Francis University in Pennsylvania. He holds a Ph.D. in history from The Ohio State University and has written over 30 books about the Civil War and related topics. His first, Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era, was published in 2014 by Ohio University Press. A companion book, My Dearest Lilla: Civil War Letters Home by General Jacob D. Cox, was published in 2023. He also co-authored the first biography of General Irvin McDowell, Searching for Irvin McDowell: The Civil War’s Forgotten General in 2023. Dr. Schmiel is a native Ohioan who lives in Gainesville, Virginia, on the border of the Manassas battlefield. He has spoken to LLI previously on a variety of topics.