Please join us for a Chambersburg Civil War Seminars & Tours Lecture Series! Our next lecture will be: Military Staff Rides: Using Civil War Battlefields as Open-Air Classrooms for Officer Education. Cost is $5 per person. Zoom Login details will be sent with your email registration confirmation.

Talk Synopsis:

Have you ever seen a group of soldiers, perhaps in uniform, on a Civil War battlefield huddled around a map, pointing enthusiastically at key terrain, or debating--loudly--the merits or flaws of famous generals ?  If so, you witnessed a military staff ride.

A staff ride is a professional military education exercise with a long and fascinating history. The U.S. Army first employed the practice around the turn of the twentieth century, when West Point cadets and officers attending the Army's more senior military schools made their way around Civil War battlefields on horseback.  They made frequent stops to examine the application of various…