When: August 8th
Where: La Navona, 154 North Hamilton Road. Gahanna Ohio 43230
Time: 7pm
Speaker: Michael Block
Topic: The Battle of Cedar Mountain
On the blazing hot afternoon of August 9, 1862 a few miles south of Culpeper, Virginia, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson led his troops into battle against Nathaniel Banks’ corps of John Pope’s new Army of Virginia. Over 3,000 men were killed or wounded that afternoon and evening in the shadow of Cedar Mountain during the deadliest day in Culpeper’s history. Culpeper’s native son, Major General A. P. Hill, sealed the Confederate victory when his division re-formed Jackson’s crumbled line and led the charge that turned the tide of the battle.
For Hill and the other Culpeper men engaged, this was a personal battle to liberate their homes, friends, and family from the Union occupation. Today, local citizens are coming together to ensure that this battle and the valor displayed by both armies will never be forgotten.
A life-long student of the American Civil War, Mike Block moved to Southern Fauquier County in 2004 where he developed a deep appreciation and love of Culpeper County and what happened on that historic ground during the Civil War.
He has been giving battlefield tours and lectures for two decades, focusing on those
stirring events in Culpeper and Fauquier Counties. Mike also has been collecting photos, drawings and first person accounts of events, both significant and mundane that occurred in the region during the war.
Mike is on the Board of Directors of the Friends of Cedar Mountain Battlefield since 2012, and is currently serving as its Vice-President. He also served on the Board of the Brandy Station Foundation and on both the Culpeper and Fauquier counties Civil War Sesquicentennial Committees.
In the Spring of 2016, Mike authored the primary article in Blue and Gray Magazine, the first published study on the Battle of Cedar Mountain in nearly 25 years. He is now has a book in edit on that same topic, “The Carnage was Fearful,” for the Emerging Civil War Series.
Mike retired from the United States Air Force in 2001; serving in Europe, Asia and the United States. He continues to support the U.S. Government as a Lead Associate for the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton. Part of his work is as a Gettysburg Staff Ride Instructor for Government Intelligence Analysts, focusing on the geospatial and intelligence aspects of the
battle.
Mike has been married for 37 years to Best-selling Romance Novelist Caryn Moya Block. They have two married sons, and three grand-daughters, Vera, Amilya and Quinn. Mike now resides in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Buckeyes in Blue: Ohio Solders in the Shenandoah Valley. A Civil War Conference
The Carnage Was Fearful: The Battle of Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862
Central Ohio Civil War Roundtable 