Past CWI Conferences
2025 Summer Conference
The 2025 Civil War Institute Summer Conference was held June 13–18, 2025, as a tribute to the life and scholarship of the Institute’s late director, Dr. Peter S. Carmichael. More than 45 scholars, speakers, and tour guides examined themes central to Carmichael’s work, including the culture of the common soldier, gender, politics and honor in the Old South, public history, Robert E. Lee’s legacy, and Indianans at Gettysburg.
Additional sessions explored Gettysburg documents from the National Archives, James Longstreet’s generalship and postwar life, the Battle of Perryville, Little Round Top archaeology, and emancipation and early Reconstruction. Attendees selected from 11 battlefield experiences, including Gettysburg hybrid tours on the Wheatfield, Florida troops, and military leadership, as well as an active track on the Union Twelfth Corps; the program also included faculty-led small-group meals, an evening interpretive visit to the George Spangler Farm, and paid livestream access to selected main-stage lectures.
Watch the 2025 conference video
2024 Summer Conference
The 2024 Civil War Institute Summer Conference was held June 7–12, 2024, and featured more than 40 scholars, speakers, and tour guides in lectures, roundtables, small-group discussions, and battlefield programs. The conference examined subjects ranging from Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Lincoln, race, immigration, and the slave trade to Civil War atrocity, General Benjamin Butler, the 1913 Gettysburg reunion, the Civil War in Missouri, and the interpretation of race at historic sites.
Participants explored Gettysburg and nearby historic landscapes through battlefield tours and hybrid classroom-and-field sessions on Civil War photography, the Union Third Corps, artillery, the U.S. Regulars, John Buford, John Brown sites in Chambersburg, field hospitals in Frederick, and military leadership at Gettysburg. The active track focused on the Union Second Corps, while evening tours addressed overlooked aspects of the battle and its aftermath; a special youth tour led by Dr. Peter Carmichael used soldiers’ letters to explore individual experiences of combat. Main-stage lectures were also available by paid livestream for remote participants.
Watch the 2024 conference video
2023 Summer Conference
The 2023 Civil War Institute Summer Conference was held June 9–14, 2023, bringing together more than 35 distinguished scholars, speakers, and tour guides for lectures, roundtables, small-group discussions, and battlefield study. Featured programming examined Lincoln as commander in chief, the Civil War in Appalachia, Harriet Tubman, John Singleton Mosby, Confederate widowhood, retaliation during the war, and the Army of Tennessee.
In addition to Gettysburg battlefield tours, participants explored Antietam and Harpers Ferry and joined hybrid classroom-and-field sessions focused on the First and Third Days of the Battle of Gettysburg. The conference’s active track offered walking-intensive study of the First Day and the Union Fishhook with historian Garry Adelman, while evening tours considered surrender, civilian and soldier experiences at a farm field hospital, and other lesser-known aspects of the battlefield.
Watch the 2023 conference video
2022 Summer Conference
The 2022 Civil War Institute Summer Conference was held June 10–15, 2022, bringing together more than 35 scholars, speakers, and tour guides for lectures, roundtables, small-group discussions, and battlefield study. Sessions explored Civil War battlefield and camp archaeology, the demobilization of Lee’s army, the Gettysburg centennial, Ulysses S. Grant, Reconstruction-era race and racial violence, the 20th Maine and Little Round Top, slavery and medicine, and Francis Barlow’s wartime experience.
In addition to touring Gettysburg, participants studied nearby sites connected to Second Fredericksburg, South Mountain, North Anna, Spotsylvania, Bristoe Station, and the 1864 Maryland Campaign. The active track featured walking-intensive Gettysburg tours with historian Timothy Orr focused on sharpshooting, while evening battlefield tours, “battlefield to field hospital” programs, and faculty-led lunch and dinner discussions added further opportunities for in-depth engagement.