February 14 Meeting Is Virtual
Due to the volatile COVID situation and continuing safety and health concerns, our February presentation will be presented virtually on the Zoom platform. Members will receive their email invitations about a week prior. Please note that Steve Norder's January presentation on Abraham Lincoln's 1862 visit to Hampton Roads is available for viewing on YouTube. Searching "rvcwrt" on YouTube will lead you to Steve's program and several earlier ones.
 

February Meeting
February 14, 2021 7:30pm

Dwight Hughes is a public historian, author, and speaker in Civil War naval history.
 

Dwight graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1967 with a major in History and Government. He served twenty years as a Navy surface warfare officer on most of the world’s oceans in ships ranging from destroyer to aircraft carrier and with river forces in Vietnam (Bronze Star for Meritorious Service, Purple Heart).
 

Lieutenant Commander Hughes taught Naval ROTC at the University of Rochester, earning an MA in Political Science. He later earned an MS in Information Systems Management from USC. In his final sea tour, Commander Hughes planned and conducted convoy exercises with over twenty ships of the Maritime Prepositioned Force, Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean.
 

Dwight’s second career was software engineering, primarily in geographic feature naming data and electronic mapping under contract for the U.S. Geological Survey. A ridge in Antarctica is named after him in recognition of contributions to Antarctic databases and information services.
 

Dwight is author of A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (Naval Institute Press, 2015) and a contributing author at the Emerging Civil War blog. His new book for the Emerging Civil War series, Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862 (Savas Beatie) was published in March 2021. He has presented at numerous Civil War Roundtables, historical conferences, and other venues.

The USS Monitor was an ingenious but hurried response to both the imminent threat of the Confederate ironclad, CSS Virginia, and to the growing prospect of international intervention in favor of Rebels backed up by powerful British or French seagoing ironclads. The United States had no defenses against either menace. Monitor would become a cultural icon of American industrial strength and ingenuity; she embodied and popularized social and institutional as well as industrial revolutions. But this was largely a symbolic role that would far outshine her actual accomplishments beyond a single engagement in a specific set of circumstances. This presentation takes Monitor from her inception in the mind of her brilliant inventor through the dramatic first clash of ironclads at Hampton Roads.

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Our speaker lineup for 2022 is now available HERE 

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Brock’s Riverside Grill, 503 Sophia Street, on the Rappahannock River in historic Old Town Fredericksburg, has been our favorite meeting venue for many years. Brock’s is open for lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch year round. Menu is American “steak and seafood” with a southwestern flair.  More information is available at Brocksgrill.com. Call 540-370-1820 for reservations.