Please join us for a Chambersburg Civil War Seminars & Tours Lecture Series! Our next lecture will be: J.E.B. Stuart: A Rendezvous with Destiny by Melissa Weeks. Cost is $6 per person. Zoom Login details will be sent with your email registration confirmation. The talk will be recorded and sent to participants to view about a week after the live talk.

Synopsis: The Bold Cavalier's reputation as a cavalryman is unrivaled in the annals of Civil War history. Yet, perhaps his destiny as an infantry commander was an unrealized calling. This talk will discuss the significance of J. E. B. Stuart’s commanding moments as an impromptu infantry commander at a key Virginia battle.

Biography: Melissa Weeks first became intrigued by the Civil War when, as a youth, she discovered her soldier ancestors, who hailed from the 42nd Mississippi. Robert Krick suggested that she use a summer to work for the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, which turned into a few years of full-time employment.

She has written several articles: “A Memoir of John E. Curran,” for The Journal of Fredericksburg History; “The Country Loses a Noble Soldier: The Battles of Brigadier General John Marshall Jones,” in Civil War Regiments: A Journal of the American Civil War; and “Lightning Strike in the Valley,” about Stonewall Jackson at the Battle of Front Royal, in Military History Magazine. She has also co-published the “Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse: May 1864” (troop movement maps). After her Park Service tenure, she continued to research, write, speak, and lead battlefield tours while pursuing her career as a high school teacher in Virginia. Her ongoing project is entitled “In the Time of Heroes: The Letters of James and David Jenkins (146th NY Infantry).”