Gene Schmiel is a retired U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Officer who was an Assistant Professor of History at St. Francis University (PA) before joining the foreign service. He holds the Ph.D. degree from The Ohio State University.

In 2020, 2021, and 2022, Schmiel published eleven books in his series, "Civil War Personalities, 50 At a Time," including "Civil War Trailblazers and Troublemakers," "Civil War Rogues, Rascals, and Rapscallions," and "Civil War Women: Underestimated and Indispensable." These books include short bios of "characters" who made the Civil War era colorful and fascinating. Each bio is accompanied by period photographs or drawings or political cartoons, and sometimes by maps by the great Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com

In 2019 he published two books: "Ohio Heroes of the Battle of Franklin," and "Lincoln, Antietam and a Northern Lost Cause," a speculative history of the Civil War, are now available on amazon.com. His first book on the Civil War, "Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era," was a History Book Club selection and was chosen as "biography of the year" in 2014 by the Civil War Books and Authors web-site.

Schmiel's most recent book, with Frank Simione, is "Searching for Irvin McDowell: Forgotten Civil War General." It is the very first biography of this critical actor in the first stages of the Civil War. It is available on amazon.com and it will be re-published in 2022 by the renowned Civil War publisher, Savas-Beatie