Dr. Richard Sommers will be will be giving a talk, “Richmond Redeemed – Lasting Lessons in Leadership from the Siege of Petersburg,” and signing copies of his book, “Richmond Redeemed: The Siege at Petersburg, The Battles of Chaffin’s Bluff and Poplar Spring Church, Sep. 29 – Oct. 2, 1864.” 

Sommers will be speaking at the 18 Annual Civil War Seminar event on Saturday, Feb. 18th from 1:45-2:45 p.m. at Longwood University (Jarman Auditorium, 201 High St.)

“The richly layered prose of Richmond Redeemed, undergirded by thousands of manuscript and printed primary accounts from more than 100 archives, has been enhanced for this Sesquicentennial Edition with new research, new writing, and most of all, new thinking,” organizers said in a release. “Teaching future strategic leaders of American and allied armed forces in the Army War College, conversing with fellow Civil War scholars, addressing Civil War audiences across the nation, and reflecting on prior assessments over the last 33 years have stimulated in the author new perspectives and new insights. He has interwoven them throughout the book. His new analysis brings new dimensions to this new edition.”

“Sommers was widely praised for his achievement. In addition to ‘Richmond Redeemed’ being a selection of the History Book Club, the National Historical Society awarded him the Bell Wiley Prize as the best Civil War book for 1981-82. Reviewers hailed it as “a book that still towers among Civil War campaign studies” and “a model tactical study (that) takes on deeper meaning . . . without sacrificing the human drama and horror of combat.”

Gettysburg Chronicle stated, “A great study of the Siege of Richmond which should be in every library of the student of the war in 1864.”

“Sommers has contributed extensively to Civil War and military history. He retired recently as the senior historian of the Army Heritage and Education Center, where he served for more than four decades. In addition to ‘Richmond Redeemed,’ he has authored more than 100 chapters, articles, entries and reviews on a wide variety of Civil War topics,” organizers said.