Notices and Updates
Membership Dues:
2026 Dues, $30 individual / $40 family
Dues can be paid on the Store page of this website, in person at the meeting or mailed to:
PCWRT
PO Box 1144, Powhatan VA. 23139
Books:
The Civil War Roundtable has a collection of interesting books, in excellent condition, that will make great additions to your Civil War library or as a gift.
**Contact Daniel Dos Santos at ddos08@gmail.com, with any questions.
Reminders
- Please consider donating to our silent auction…Civil War memorabilia and books, Richmond history, etc.
Menu
TBA
PLEASE RSVP to
Bill Shockley by Sept. 13th. Cell number: 804-245-3822
email: tga770@yahoo.com;
Reservations received after the deadline may be offered soup/salad instead of the hot meal if hot meal quantities are limited. Also let him know if you prefer soup and salad. Please RSVP, then send your checks to our postal address below, purchase on the Store page of this website, or pay in person at the meeting.
Don’t depend on your check only as your RSVP.
$25 members, $30 non-members
We meet at 6:30pm at:
County Seat Restaurant
3867 Old Buckingham Road
Powhatan, VA
Our program...
How the Civil War changed Victorian notions of death
By 1860 Victorians had come to dominate the American cultural landscape. The working class sought for most of the century to emulate them and the wealthy used their advantages to set themselves apart with material goods while cherry-picking Victorian rules to appear gentile. But Victorian cultural domination was not challenged by the Civil War. The rose-colored glasses fell away and the harsh realities of war changed Victorian values and left them groping for ways to cope. In few areas was this more apparent than their attitudes towards death and dying. Victorians who entered the 1860s romanticizing death found themselves appalled by grim depictions of mangled corpses in the photographs of the era. Grasping for new direction, the Victorians readily embraced the Industrial and Consumer Revolutions in the decades after the war to reshape their notions of how death and dying ought to be observed, how corpses should be cared for and how cemetery art should memorialize the dead.
Our speaker is Derek Maxfield:
Formerly associate professor of history at a small WNY college, now retired, Derek Maxfield was honored in
2019 with the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2013 he was awarded the SUNY
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities. His research interests include Victorian
deathways and 19th century politics and culture. Maxfield has written for Emerging Civil War since 2015 and
has written two titles for the ECW book series – Hellmira: The Union’s Most Infamous Civil War Prison Camp –
Elmira, NY (Savas Beatie, 2020) and Man of Fire: William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War (Savas Beatie,
2023).
Maxfield lives near Rochester, NY, with his wife Jess, four cats, a basset hound, King Charles cavalier spaniel,
and a python. He hopes to soon acquire a Bengal tiger cub (subject to his wife’s approval).
Past Programs
December 2025 - our president, Mike Hall, read a wonderful Civil War story written by his father.
June & July meetings were cancelled
February 2025 - Cancelled due to snow
March 2023
January 2023 - In addition to our program, we celebrated Max Travis, founding member of the club who has entertained and educated us all through the accounts of his family history and his knowledge of this period of history.
November 2022 - we had the pleasure of hearing member Mike Hall talk about his ancestor in the war