Speaker Biographies

Judkin Browning is Professor of military history at Appalachian State University, where he is the director of graduate studies in history.  He has most recently co-authored An Environmental History of the Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, forthcoming 2020), with Timothy Silver.  He has also written Shifting Loyalties: The Union Occupation of Eastern North Carolina, 1862-1865 (2011) and The Seven Days' Battles: The War Begins Anew (2012).

Peter S. Carmichael is the Director of the Civil War Institute and the Robert C. Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies at Gettysburg College. He currently teaches courses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American South, and public history. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles, essays, and three books: Lee’s Young Artillerist: William R.J. Pegram (University of Virginia Press, 1998), The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion (University of North Carolina Press, 2005), and most recently, The War for the Common Soldier: How Men Thought, Fought, and Survived in Civil War Armies (UNC Press, 2018).  Dr. Carmichael has lectured widely on topics pertaining to the Civil War and public history and has appeared as an expert scholar in several historical documentaries. He has also conducted numerous public presentations, teacher workshops, exhibit consultations, and multiple interpretive workshops for National Park Service staff. Dr. Carmichael has also assisted with the development of student internship programs at numerous NPS sites.

Christopher Gwinn is a ten year veteran of the National Park Service. He is a 2006 graduate of Gettysburg College and holds a Masters Degree in Public History. He has worked as an Interpretive Park Ranger at Antietam National Battlefield, Boston National Historical Park, and the National Mall and Memorial Parks, where he created some of the first public programming conducted at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. Currently the Chief of Interpretation and Education at Gettysburg National Military Park, he manages and oversees all aspects of the visitor experience, and has written numerous articles and journal entries on the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War era.

Scott Hartwig retired in 2014 as the Supervisory Park Historian at Gettysburg National Military Park after a 34-year career in the National Park Service, nearly all of it spent at Gettysburg. He won the regional Freeman Tilden Award for excellence in interpretation in 1993, and was a key player for the design of all aspects of the new Gettysburg museum/visitor center. He is the author of To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign from September 3 to September 16, published in September 2012 by Johns Hopkins University Press, and is currently working on the second volume, tentatively titled, I Dread The Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam, which covers the battle and end of the Maryland Campaign.

Ashley Whitehead Luskey is the Assistant Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, where she works with Gettysburg College students on a variety of original research-based Civil War and public history projects, coordinates the annual CWI summer conference, and gives tours of the battlefield to visitors. She holds a PhD in nineteenth-century American history, with academic interests in the Civil War and Reconstruction, Southern history, cultural history, public history, and the intersection of history & memory. Prior to her arrival at CWI, Dr. Luskey worked for ten years with the National Park Service, including eight years as a park ranger and historian at Richmond National Battlefield Park. She has delivered numerous interpretive tours, lectures, and scholarly papers at educational institutions and public venues across the country, and has written articles on a variety of Civil War and public history-related topics for various magazines, journals, and blogs. Her most recent piece, a co-edited article entitled “From Women’s History to Gender History: Revamping Interpretation at Richmond National Battlefield Park,” was published in the June 2016 issue of Civil War History. She is currently revising a manuscript tentatively entitled The Last Confederate Christmas: Leading Ladies, Social Politics, and Power in the Confederate Capital for publication.

Daniel J. Vermilya is a Civil War historian and Park Ranger at Eisenhower National Historic Site. He also has previously worked at Gettysburg National Military Park, Antietam National Battlefield, and Monocacy National Battlefield, and has performed volunteer work for the James A. Garfield National Historic Site. In 2012, Daniel was awarded the first Joseph L. Harsh Memorial Scholar Award by the Save Historic Antietam Foundation.  He is the author of several books on the American Civil War, including The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain (History Press, 2014), James Garfield and the Civil War: For Ohio and the Union (History Press, 2015), and That Field of Blood: The Battle of Antietam (Savas Beatie, 2017).