Civil War Weekend 2025
Thank you to the speakers and guests who helped make our 2025 Civil War Weekend a huge success! We heard from a stellar group of speakers and enjoyed fellowship with other history enthusiasts — all in the comfortable surroundings of the Inn at Virginia Tech.
A highlight of the weekend was the announcement of a major donation to Virginia Tech from speaker Sue Heth Bell – read the details here: https://news.vt.edu/articles/2025/04/univlib-Wharton-Collection.html
This year’s theme was “Civil War Duos.” The Civil War era fundamentally transformed human connections—from friendships and marriages to political alliances—bringing some Americans together into productive new relationships while driving existing partnerships apart. Our speakers explored an array of different partnerships that took new forms amid the challenges of slavery, sectional conflict, and war.
Keynote speaker Ilyon Woo shared the incredible story of the enslaved couple who escaped to freedom in disguise, the subject of her recent Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Master, Slave, Husband, Wife. Our distinguished speakers also investigated the critical relationships between leaders on both sides: Lincoln and McClellan, Lee and Jackson. We learned about how war transformed romantic pairings in the North and the South, and how the United States Army and Navy slowly worked their way toward a more harmonious collaboration as the war went on.
Our 2025 Spring Campaign (an optional two-night field trip after each year's Civil War Weekend) included a custom guided tour of the storied battleground of Gettysburg, focusing on the critical military decisions that made July 1863 go down in history. We also explored the National Museum of Civil War Medicine and the Monocacy Battlefield, where Jubal Early’s Confederates threatened to break through to Washington, DC, in July 1864.
