This will be our Nathan Burkan meeeting. Our speaker will be John L. Hopkins, who will share the fascinating story of the reunion of Gettysburg veterans, Blue and Grey together, at the Reunion gathering of 1913. It will be held at Connally's Pub and Restaurant, 14 East 47 St, NY NY. Our meetings start at 6:00PM sharp with a pay bar and socializing starting at 5:30PM.
In addition, this meeting will serve as our annual Memorial Meeting for Nathan Burkan, one of our deceased founding members. Nathan's wife Roberta, who has remained active in the CWFMNY since its founding, will be in attendance at this meeting.You are invited to the Monday May 18th meeting of the CWFMNY. This willalso be our annual Nathan Burkan Memorial meeting, and Nathan's wife Roberta, who has remained very active in the CWFMNY since Nathan passed away, will once again be attending the meeting.
We are pleased to welcome John Hopkins as our speaker, who is traveling to us from Ohio to discuss his first book, published in 2023, "The World Has Never Seen the Like: The Gettysburg Reunion of 1913." His work recounts the 50th anniversary gathering of 53,000 Union and Confederate veterans, who returned to Gettysburg this time as comrades, rather than as enemies, meeting at the site where 50 years earlier they faced each other in the most famous and bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil. Please see the final paragraph below for full meeting details, and please notify Ann Plogsterth as early as possible of your intention to attend. Her contact info is also listed below. Please remember, the new cost of attendance plus dinner at our meetings is now $65 per person. If you plan to attend please contact Ann Plogsterth at either 212-877-6814 or plogsterth@aol.com.
John is a retired communications and public relations professional with over 30 years of experience in higher education and non-profit sectors. A New York City native and graduate of the very prestigious and absolutely gorgeous Williams College in Williamstown Massachusetts, he moved to the Midwest with his family 30 years ago. This is his first book.
John fills his book with detail from the letters, diaries, and published accounts of Union and Confederate veterans, the extensive archival records of the reunion’s organizers, and the daily stories filed by the scores of reporters who covered it. The World Will Never See the Like offers the first full story of this extraordinary event’s genesis and planning, the obstacles overcome on the way to making it a reality, and the individual stories of the veterans who attended. It was even attended by the infamous Dan Sickels, who at 92 was still eager to explain to anyone who would listen the indispensable role he claimed to have played in the Union victory.
For seven days these old soldiers lived under canvas in stifling heat on a 280-acre encampment run by the U.S. Army. They swapped stories, debated still-simmering controversies about the battle, and fed tall tales to gullible reporters. On July 3, the aging survivors of Pickett’s Division and the Philadelphia Brigade shook hands across the wall on Cemetery Ridge in the reunion’s climactic photo op.--
