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Kalamazoo Civil War Round Table
Dedicated to preserving the History and Stories of The American Civil War
The next KCWRT Meeting....on October 16
This month’s speaker is Dan Masters
Dan will be presenting him with the 2026 Albert Castel Award for his book on the Stones River Campaign Hell By The Acre.Dan spoke to us in May 2025 on Stones River, so this month, in addition to saying a little about his book, he will give a talk on "Drunk or Diabetic: The Misadventures of General Sam Sturgis at Brice's Crossroads"
October 17th
1859 - A company of marines arrived and surrounded abolitionist John Brown after his raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. On the morning of October 19, the soldiers overran Brown and his survivors. Ten of Brown's men were killed, including two of his sons.
1864 - Confederate General James Longstreet assumed command of his corps in Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.
1978 - U.S. President Carter signed a bill that restored full U.S. citizenship rights to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
U.S. Civil War Quote:
"The dead of the battle-field come up to us very rarely, even in dreams. We see the list in the morning paper at breakfast, but dismiss its recollection with the coffee. Mr. Matthew Brady has done something to bring us the terrible reality and earnestness of the war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our door-yards and along our streets, he has done something very like it."
- The New York Times
KCWRT Activities
Albert Castel Book Award
Historical Preservation Efforts
Albert Castel Book Award
To stimulate new scholarship on the Civil War, every other year KCWRT presents the Albert Castel Book Award to the author of the best recent book on the Civil War in the Western Theater.
WMU History Day 2023
Historical Preservation Efforts
Albert Castel Book Award
To help promote local interest in the Civil War, KCWRT awards an annual prize for the best Civil War-related entry in the Kalamazoo District Michigan History Day Competition.
Historical Preservation Efforts
Historical Preservation Efforts
Historical Preservation Efforts
KCWRT has conducted fund raisers to support numerous preservation efforts over the years. Generally, this is in the form of a donation to a preservation fund organized to save a specific Civil War site from development.