Chris Calkins is the author of a dozen publications and many articles and was popular on the speaking circuit. Chris received the 2014 Award of Merit “for his dedication to preserving the Civil War battlefield landscape of Virginia” from the American Association for State and Local History, one of only three Virginians to receive this award. In 2020, he was bestowed with the Edwin C. Bearss Lifetime Achievement Award for extraordinary work in historic preservation. The Detroit native graduated from Longwood College (now University) in Farmville, Virginia, and lives in a restored 18th-century Georgian home in Petersburg’s Old Town Historic District.
Robert M. (Bert) Dunkerly is a historian, award-winning author, and speaker who is actively involved in historic preservation and research. He works as a park ranger at Richmond National Battlefield Park. Among his books are three in the ECW Series: To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the Surrenders of the Confederacy; No Turning Back: A Guide to the 1864 Overland Campaign; and Embattled Capital: A Guide to Richmond During the Civil War. He also blogs for Emerging Civil War and Emerging Revolutionary War Era (www.emergingcivilwar.com and www.emergingrevolutionarywar.org).