From the Forum’s program newsletter organizer, Jim Santagata:
With the completion of this past weekend's autumn West Point Tour, it's back to indoor presentations for the remainder of this 2026-27 meeting schedule. And I believe the coming November 16th meeting will offer our membership some totally unique subject matter in this our seventeenth year! The subject of the November presentation will be Women Who Fought in the Civil War... yes, women who fought as soldiers, in addition to the many women who served as nurses. Our presenters will be Tracey McIntire and Audrey Scanlan-Teller. Tracey is Lead Educator at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick MD, and is an interpretive volunteer at Antietam National Battlefield. Since 2008, she has been portraying a woman soldier at living history events. Audrey has portrayed a Civil War enlisted soldier for historical demonstrations, a portrayal that compelled her to study the women soldiers of the Civil War. She is also an interpretative volunteer at Antietam, as well as being a small business owner.
If the presence of women soldiers in the Civil War surprises you, you may be even more surprised to learn that various historic sources cite that between 400 to as many as 1,000 women joined the ranks of Civil War soldiers, and they did so by adopting male identities! Their motivations varied widely, such as a strong desire to remain with their loved ones, or out of patriotism, or for the sheer adventure or for economic opportunity, or even to escape the restrictive gender roles of the day! Adopting male identities was necessary because both Union and Confederate armies officially prohibited female enlistment, and their true identities were usually only discovered as a result of injury.
So this is a "can't miss" presentation if you'd like to learn about a complement of both Union and Confederate soldiers that some of us, perhaps most of us, knew nothing about!
The meeting will take place on Monday, November 16th, at Draught 55, located at 245 East 55th Street, NY NY. The cost of attendance plus dinner at our meetings is $65 per person. Our meetings start at 6:00PM sharp, but socializing at the pay bar is open from about 5:30. If you plan to attend please contact Ann Plogsterth at either 212-877-6814 or plogsterth@aol.com. As always, your earliest possible reply greatly aids both our planning, and the planning by the restaurant, to furnish the correct number of meals, so please notify Ann as soon as you can.
And as a hopefully final reminder, if you haven't already done so, payment of your 2026-27 CWFMNY dues is now past due. Please plan to either pay David Rothfeld, our Treasurer, in person at the meeting, with a check for $60 made payable to CWFMNY, or mail your check to David at 120 Bethpage Rd. Suite 301, Hicksville NY 11801-1515.