Announcing Our 536th Meeting
Saturday, March 9 

Earning His Spurs: General John B. Hood in 1864

Presented by Stephen Davis 

Stephen Davis of Atlanta has been a Civil War buff since the 4th grade. He grew up in Atlanta, attending Margaret Mitchell Elementary and Northside High. At Emory University, he studied under the renowned Civil War historian Bell Wiley. After a Master’s degree in American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he taught high school for a few years, then earned his Ph.D. at Emory, where he concentrated on the theme of the Civil War in Southern literature. He’s also taught at Oglethorpe University. 

Steve is the author of a new history of the Atlanta Campaign, published by Savas Beatie as two paperbacks:  A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw to the Chattahoochee, May 5-July 18, 1864 and  All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign from Peachtree Creek to the City’s Surrender, July 18-September 2, 1864. His book, What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman’s Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta, was published by Mercer University Press in 2012. In a review in Civil War News, Ted Savas calls Steve’s work “by far the most well-researched, thorough, and detailed account ever written about the ‘wrecking’ of Atlanta.” He is also author of Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston and the Heavy Yankee Battalions (2001). He served as Book Review Editor for Blue & Gray Magazine from 1984 to 2005, and is the author of more than a hundred articles in such scholarly and popular publications as Civil War Times Illustrated and the Georgia Historical Quarterly. 

Now retired, Steve serves as Book Review Editor for Civil War News, the monthly national newspaper for buffs, for which he contributes a regular column, “Critic’s Corner.” Steve is also a popular speaker at Civil War Round Tables and historical societies around the country. He has spoken on “What the Yankees Did to Us” to the Round Tables of Buffalo, New York and Providence, Rhode Island (and got away with it!). He has given talks at the annual meeting of the American Civil War Round Table (UK) in London. His favorite event was a few years ago when he addressed President and Mrs. Carter and family on the role of Copenhill (the Carter Center) in the battle of Atlanta. 

Next year Mercer University Press will publish Steve’s next book, tentatively titled Flawed Image: A Study of John B. Hood’s Generalship in 1864.