Please note: Optional Dinner will start at 6:00 PM. The Lecture will start at 7:00 PM. To make dinner reservations, email CvilleCWRT@gmail.com and indicate your entree choice: beef, salmon or chicken. Dinner includes salad and dessert. Cost is $29 for members and $35 for non-members.

LECTURE TOPIC: Hampton Newsome will discuss Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and His Fellow Veterans, the “lost” second volume of Civil War accounts compiled by George S. Bernard. In 1892, Bernard, a Petersburg lawyer, UVA student, and member of the 12th Virginia Infantry Regiment, produced a book titled War Talks of Confederate Veterans, a collection of firsthand accounts focusing on the battles and campaigns in the east. Bernard prepared a second volume but was never able to publish it. After his death in 1912, his papers became scattered or simply lost. But a series of finds, culminating with the discovery of a cache of documents in Roanoke in 2004, made it possible to reconstruct the missing second volume, which was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2012. Newsome will talk about Bernard’s story, the accounts he gathered from veterans about famous campaigns, and the effort to bring this project together.

SPEAKER BIO: Hampton Newsome lives in Charlottesville and is a member of the Roundtable. He is a co-editor of Civil War Talks, the subject of tonight’s talk. He has also written books on the Petersburg Campaign, military operations in North Carolina in 1864, and the little-known Federal offensive against Richmond during the Gettysburg Campaign. Recently retired from a career practicing consumer and environmental law, he is a regular speaker at Civil War Roundtables, and has led tours of sites around Richmond and Petersburg. He is currently finishing up a book about the Appomattox Campaign, which will be published next year, and is working on a project about Richmond at the end of Reconstruction. He posts book-related content on Facebook at “Hampton Newsome – Author.”