Upcoming Events
Upcoming Events:
January 26, 2026 – President’s Lecture Series with historian D. Scott Hartwig. Byrd CHE Auditorium. More details soon.
February 27, 2026 – Virtual book launch for They Are Dead and Yet They Live: Civil War Memories in a Polarized America with Dr. Jennifer Murray and Dr. John Kinder (OSU). More details soon.
March 7, 2026 – Used Civil War Book Sale at the Civil War Center. More details soon.
April 18, 2026 – John Brown’s War: A Tour in the Footsteps of One of America’s Most Enigmatic Figures. Join Harpers Ferry National Historical Park’s Chief Historian Emeritus, Dennis Frye, for a special, full-day program traversing the key sites associated with John Brown’s famed 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. As America commemorates its 250th anniversary, explore the enduring ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy, and the ways in which John Brown understood his own role in manifesting those ideas.
Cost: $150.00/person. Price includes full-day program (7am-8pm) and NPS entry fee; bus transportation from either Gettysburg College or Shepherd University to Harpers Ferry, Charles Town, and John Brown’s Headquarters at the Kennedy Farm; and a group dinner at the Bavarian Inn, in Shepherdstown. Participants will purchase lunch on their own in Harpers Ferry.
Register here.
Co-sponsored by Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.
Recent Events:
November 2, 2025 – Historian Kevin Pawlak led a caravan and walking tour of the Battle of Shepherdstown. This caravan and walking tour will cover the final event of the Maryland Campaign, the two-day Battle of Shepherdstown. Fought following the Confederate withdrawal from Sharpsburg, this battle along the Potomac River helped prevent a Confederate reentry into Maryland and officially brought Lee’s campaign north of the Potomac River to an end.
September 18-20, 2025 – Annual Civil War Fall Seminar: Antietam & Its Legacy. Click here for more information.
September 27, 2025 – Sedgwick’s Division – Tour of Antietam with Scott Hartwig hosted by Addressing Gettysburg, with a book signing and light refreshments at the Civil War Center following the tour.
October 1, 2025 – Eric Campbell, former Chief of Interpretation at Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, presented “The Burning: Sheridan’s Operations in the Shenandoah Valley.”
July 17, 2025 – 7pm. Midnight on the Potomac: Scott Ellsworth in Conversation. A powerful and timely discussion with bestselling historian Scott Ellsworth, author of Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America. Presented by Four Seasons Books in partnership with the George Tyler Moore Center & the Center for Appalachian Studies at Shepherd University.
May 23, 2025 – Bleeding Kansas – A Historical Drama presented by Town Run Theatre Company at Shepherdstown Opera House. Following the May 23rd performance, GTMC’s new director, Dr. Jennifer Murray, presented a short talk.
December 5, 2024 – Professor Jonathan Noyalas presented “Never to be Forgotten”: What the Battle of Cool Spring Reveals about the War’s Impact on Soldiers & Families from his book “The Blood-Tinted Waters of the Shenandoah”: The 1864 Valley Campaign’s Battle of Cool Spring.
December 7, 2024 – Historic Christmas at the Shindler House. Join us after the parade for a family friendly celebration of the season! Stop by to create a yule log, see military reenactors, and have a snack of cider and ginger snaps.
November 2, 2024 – Black Life at Ferry Hill Tour. Drs. James Broomall and Ben Bankhurst, along with special guest Justin Ebersole (NPS cultural resource specialist), lead a walking tour focusing on Black life, enslavement, and freedom at Ferry Hill. Participants toured Ferry Hill’s interior and walked the site grounds.
October 8, 2024 – Dr. Kate Masur presented an author talk and q&a about her new book Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C. Area, presented in partnership with Four Seasons Books and the Robert C. Byrd Center for Congressional History and Education.
April 25, 2024 – Dr. Clayton Butler, Historian and Assistant Editor at UVA Press, spoke on his book True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South During the Civil War and Reconstruction.
March 21, 2024 – Panel career discussion highlighting the great successes of Shepherd graduates and potential careers for current students.
December 1, 2023 – James Scythes offered a talk from his book Letters to Lizzie: The Story of Sixteen Men in the Civil War and the One Woman Who Connected Them All.
December 2, 2023 – Historic Christmas: living history demonstrations, children’s activities, battlefield tabletop games, and a display by Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association.
November 8, 2023 – Co-sponsored with Byrd CHE and Lifelong Learning, Charlie Goodyear presented from his book “President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier“.
November 16, 2023 – Patrick Schroeder, Historian at Appomattox Courthouse National Historical Park presented from his his popular Myths About Lee’s Surrender books.
October 12, 2023 – Historian Curtis Older presented from his book Hood’s Defeat Near Fox’s Gap: Prelude to Emancipation.
October 6-8, 2023 – We held our Fall Seminar, “Meade’s Decision: The Pipe Creek Line & the Road to Gettysburg.”
September 21, 2023 – Historian and filmmaker Steven Cowie presented from his book When Hell Came to Sharpsburg: The Battle of Antietam and Its Impact on the Civilians Who Called It Home.
September 17, 2023 – Shepherdstown Opera House, along with the GTMC, Historic Shepherdstown Museum, and Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association, hosted the first theater screening and q & a of “Shepherdstown Remembers Antietam,” an original film written and produced by local history researcher Jim Surkamp. The film describes the Battle’s impact through the eyes of Shepherdstown-area residents of the time, many of whom mobilized to aid wounded and hungry soldiers.
August 30, 2023 – In partnership with Shepherd University’s Lifelong Learning program, Dr. Stephen Goldman presented “Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Wiley Gelray: How a Maimed Union Veteran Battled the Ku Klux Klan” from his book One More War to Fight: Union Veterans’ Battle for Equality through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Lost Cause.
April 26, 2023 – Dr. Scott MacKenzie presented on his book Slavery, Emancipation, and the Formation of West Virginia, 1829-1872, co-sponsored with Lifelong Learning.
March 16-18, 2023 – The Virginia Forum held its annual conference at Shepherd University.
March 2, 2023 – Dr. Emilie Amt presented “Black Antietam: Searching for African American Civil War History” from her book Black Antietam: African Americans and the Civil War in Sharpsburg.
December 3, 2022 – Holiday Open House with Living History Demonstrations and a Yule Log. We presented Christmas across the ages through hands-on demonstrations, toys, and learning the tradition of the Yule log.
December 1, 2022 – “A Classical Brass Christmas” A brass quintet, consisting of current and former Shepherd University faculty performed Christmas and other classical pieces from the 16th-20th centuries.
November 29, 2022 – Robert Dunkerly presented “The Brown’s Island Explosion and Search for the Victims”
November 19, 2022 – “Culp’s Hill in War and Memory”: Dr. James Broomall and Dana Shoaf, Editor at Civil War Times, lead a walking tour of Culp’s Hill in Gettysburg National Battlefield.
November 9, 2022 – Ernie Dollar presented on his recent book, Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in the Civil War’s Final Campaign in North Carolina.
October 27, 2022 – Professor Jonathan Noyalas presented “‘To Be Free Someday’: Reflections on Slavery & Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era,” from his book Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era. Watch on Facebook.
September 10, 2022 – “Exposed to the Fire of Slavery and Freedom:” A Symposium Commemorating the 160th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. In conjunction with Antietam National Battlefield, this one-day event featured presentations on the battle of Antietam and its contested legacy.
July 6 – 9, 2021 – “A desperate thing to do”- Jubal Early’s 1864 Maryland Campaign, Facebook, (view here)
June 3, 2021 – Mosby’s Rangers with Eric W. Buckland, Facebook Live, (view here)
May 26, 2021 – “Down the Valley, and Back Again”: The 1862 Valley Campaign“, Facebook Live (view here)
May 19, 2021 – “The Grinding Curse”: Race and Slavery in the Shenandoah Valley, Facebook Live (view here)
May 6, 2021 – Material Witness: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth- Century Artifacts and Narrating the Past- Facebook Live (view here)
March 25, 2021 – Searching for Hayward Shepherd – Facebook Live (view here)
March 4, 2021 – Music of the People: American Folk Music through the Centuries – Facebook Live (view here)
February 16, 2021 – Seceding from Secession: West Virginia Exceptionalism and the Road to Statehood – Facebook Live (view here)
January 28, 2021 – The Winter’s War: Civil War Soldiers in Camp & On Campaign – Facebook Live (view here)
We hope you join us for future programs!