Venue: Jepson Alumni Executive Center Grand Ballroom

To register for this conference, copy and paste this link into your browser: https://cvbt.networkforgood.com/events/66867-2024-cvbt-annual-conference-seventy-square-miles-of-hell-mine-run-campaign-and-the-wilderness

Conference Topic - Seventy Square Miles of Hell: The Mine Run Campaign and The Wilderness

Saturday Tour (Including Lunch) - Expanded Tour of Wilderness Battlefielde - Gordon Rhea

(ALSO SEE SATURDAY BANQUET INFO AT BOTTOM OF PAGE)

Our tour will take us through the Confederate and Union encampments for the 1863-1864 winter and the movements of Grant and Lee to the Wilderness on May 3 and 4, 1864.  Leaving Fredericksburg, we will pass through the Wilderness, proceed via Locust Grove and the base of Clark’s Mountain to Orange Court House, and tour A. P. Hill’s headquarters at the Mayhurst property.  From there, we will drive past General Lee’s headquarters, cross the Rapidan River at Rappahannock Station, and proceed to Culpeper Court House, where we will view Grant’s headquarters, pass through Brandy Station, and stop for lunch at Lenn Park. 

During the afternoon, we will drive through Stevensburg, walk Hansbrough’s ridge and the Union 2nd Corps encampment, then follow the Union army’s route past Madden’s tavern and the modern USCT monument.  We will cross the Rapidan at Germanna Ford, walk to the Germanna river crossing for the Union 5th, 6th, and 9th Corps, then drive to the Union 2nd Corps’ crossing at Ely’s Ford.  Time permitting, we will examine Union cavalry deployments along the Orange turnpike and Orange Plank Roads the evening before the Battle of the Wilderness began on May 5, 1864.

Saturday Evening Banquet - William "Jack" Davis

Civil War Mythology, Then & Today:  William C."Jack" Davis, retired Executive Director of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies and professor of history at Virginia Tech, formerly spent 31 years in editorial and marketing management in the book and magazine publishing industry.  He has consulted for numerous film and television productions, and was senior advisor for the A&E and History Channel series “Civil War Journal.” 

Davis is the author or editor of more than 50 books in Civil War and Southern history, and most recently co-edited with Sue Heth Bell, The Whartons’ War:  The Civil War Correspondence of General Gabriel C. Wharton  & Anne Radford Wharton, 1863-1865.  He is currently working with Ron Maxwell, director of the epic films “Gettysburg” and “Gods and Generals,” on two docudrama series for television.

"Mythology is perennial, and universal.  It is all around us, and we create--and believe in--myths for a host of reasons, often unconsciously.  The Civil War era was no different, and in the generations following the close of the fighting the myth-making only grew in volume.  This talk will look at some myths that are amusing and silly.  More profound ones illuminate how our ancestors coped with the war's results.  And a thriving mythology today tells us about ourselves and how we want to perceive our past and present."