Saturday, March 27, 2010

The expanded exhibit hall allows participants to visit with representatives from several Civil War sites and museums, re-enactors and vendors. 

Registration includes all sessions, continental breakfast and box lunch.  On-site registration is available the day of the conference, however, lunch cannot be guaranteed for those registering the day of the event.  Advance registration is strongly recommended.

Maryland and the Civil War:  A Regional Perspective is sponsored by the Historical Society of Carroll County and Carroll Community College.  The conference is held at Carroll Community College, 1601 Washington Road, Westminster, MD.  Directions.

Lawrence Bopp
Upon the outbreak of war, the US Navy's force of less than 100 ships was tasked with blockading over 3000 miles of coastline in order to choke off the Confederacy.  How did the Navy grow to achieve this goal and who were the men who carried out the mission? Using Baltimore's own USS Constellation (the last surviving Civil War ship) as the centerpiece, Lawrence Bopp focuses on the men who crewed various ships while the navy modernized from sail to steam and wood to iron.

Securing the Potomac: Colonel Charles P. Stone and the Rockville Expedition, June-July 1861
Tim Snyder
The Rockville Expedition, which began almost two months after Fort Sumter, was the first Federal attempt to seize control of the Potomac River above Washington.  This talk examines the purpose of the expedition and follows its progress up the river as Colonel Charles P. Stone placed the first U.S. pickets at the vulnerable fords and ferries.

Flags of the 1^st Maryland Cavalry Battalion, CSA
Jim McGlincy
The 1st Maryland Cavalry, CSA, served with distinction from early 1861 through 1865.  Their spiritual descendents, the members of the 1^st Maryland Cavalry Battalion CSA, have been working to preserve the unit’s history.  This special presentation examines the Flags Project through which the reenactors have researched and located the surviving flags and banners, accurately reproduced them for re-enactment use and begun raising funds for the cleaning and conservation of the original flags.

Exhibit Hall
Visit the displays in the Exhibit Hall.

Maryland Soldiers North and South
Dan Toomey
Marylanders fought on both sides in the Civil War.  Dan Toomey takes a look at who wore blue and who wore gray, and how Maryland’s troops evolved from pre-war militia companies to reliable combat veterans in both the Union and Confederate armies.  This illustrated presentation covers the militia, recruiting, Maryland versus Maryland, and the veterans.

Agents & Activities of the Confederate Secret & Signal Services in Maryland 1861-1865
Jeff Goodson
Few are aware that the first assassination plot against a US President-elect originated in Baltimore and that the head of the Confederate Secret and Signal Service in Richmond was a Marylander.  Jeff Goodson examines these and other fascinating topics such as the intricate details of the Confederate “Secret Line” through Maryland, the clandestine activities of the Confederate resistance and smuggling operations in the Chesapeake Bay & Potomac River, and the Confederate Secret Service connections of the Marylanders involved in the final assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln.

Harriet Tubman: Meet the Woman
Gwendolyn Briley-Strand
Known as the "Moses of Her People," Harriet Ross Tubman led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom by way of the Underground Railroad. She served in the Union Army as both a spy and a scout during the Civil War and nursed the contraband and black soldiers in the Federal City and other southern cities. Ms. Tubman repeatedly risked her life fighting for the freedom that the constitution guaranteed all Americans. Gwendolyn Briley-Strand discusses the life of this remarkable woman and provides a Power Point photographic exhibit of plantations on which Tubman was enslaved, the home in which she lived as a free woman, and churches she helped build.  Support for this presentation is provided by the Maryland Humanities Council Speakers Bureau.

This session is open to the public at no charge.  Registration for the conference is not required to attend only this session.

Lawrence Bopp is the author of Sailing Life on USS Constellation and co-author of USS Constellation: An Illustrated History and Showing the Flag: The Civil War Naval Diary of Moses Safford, USS Constellation. He is a retired history and English teacher; long-time Maryland living history personage; and chief living history interpreter and editor for the USMC Historical Company.

Gwendolyn Briley-Strand has been delighting audiences on stage, television, and in movie theatres for over twenty years. She is known for her portrayals of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Rosa Parks. In 1991 and 1992 Ms. Briley-Strand was invited to bring Harriet Tubman to the White House for the Fourth of July Celebration. She has also portrayed Harriet Tubman at the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, and museums and cultural organizations. She received her B.A. in theater from Fordham University and is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, Actors Equity Association, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Jeff Goodson is a retired Counterintelligence Special Agent and a military history buff.  He is Adjunct Professor of History at Carroll Community College and the Community College of Baltimore County.  He is a member of the Baltimore Civil War Roundtable and the Company of Military Historians. 

James McGlincy, Colonel of the 1^st Maryland Cavalry Battalion, Battery B, Companies A, E & H CSA, Inc., is a member of the National Registry of Living Historians His work on the flags project has been endorsed by the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Maryland Sons of Confederate Veterans Color Guard, and the State Archives in Annapolis.

Tim Synder holds an M.A. in history and is a free-lance historian who has written extensively about the Civil War.  His articles on the Session Crisis and the early days of the Civil War have appeared in the Maryland Historical Magazine.  He is currently working on an article for publication in Catoctin History and is completing a book about the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal during the Civil War.

Daniel Carroll Toomey is a seventh generation Marylander.  He is a graduate of the University of Maryland and the author of several books including The Civil War in Maryland, The Johnson-Gilmor Raid, and The Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home.  He is the co-author of Baltimore During the Civil War and Marylanders in Blue.  Toomey serves on the Maryland Military Monuments Commission and on the board of directors of the Maryland Military Historical Society.  He was the project historian and wrote the inscription for the Maryland Memorial erected at Gettysburg in 1984.  Toomey was the recipient of the Gettysburg National Battlefield Award in 1985 and in 2001 received the Peterkin Award from the National Park Service at Fort McHenry for his contributions in the fields of research and preservation. 

Historical Society of Carroll County
210 East Main Street, Westminster MD 21157
(410) 848-6494