Robert I. Girardi

Robert I. Girardi has had a life long fascination with the Civil War. He has studied the war from all sides, and has tramped over many of the battlefields and related historic sites. He has collected artifacts and memorabilia and has read through thousands of documents and letters written by the war's participants. Robert is an author and historian and is a popular speaker and consultant on the American Civil War to audiences of all ages. He has addressed historical societies, libraries, and Civil War groups all over the United States. He is a well known authority on the subject in the Chicago area, where he has been interviewed on radio,television and in The Chicago Tribune.

Robert earned his M.A. in Public History at Loyola University of Chicago in 1991. He is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago and he belongs to three other Civil War round tables in the Chicago area. He is a fellow of the Company of Military Historians and is an associate member of the Sons of Union Veterans. He is on the Board of Directors of the Camp Douglas Restoration Society and the Illinois State Historical Society. He is also on the editorial review board of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, for which he edited 2011-2014 Sesquicentennial of the Civil War Issues. He has consulted for the Chicago Historical Society on its Civil War exhibits, and lectured at its teachers and docents seminars. He is the 2010 recipient of the Chicago Civil War Round Table's Nevins-Freeman Award for scholarship and service. In 2013 he was awarded a research grant by the Friends of Andersonville, for his work on the experience and memory of Illinois soldiers at Andersonville prison. In 2014 he was awarded the Milwaukee Civil War Round Table's Iron Brigade Association for Civil War scholarship.

Robert I. Girardi has authored or edited ten books:

The Soldiers' General: Major General Gouverneur K. Warren and the Civil War, Savas-Beatie, (2014)

The Civil War Generals: Comrades, Peers, Rivals, in Their Own Words, Zenith Press (2013)

Gettysburg in Art and Artifacts (2010)

The Civil War Art of Keith Rocco (2009)

Campaigning with Uncle Billy: The Civil War Memoirs of Sgt. Lyman S. Widney, 34th Illinois Volunteer Infantry (2008)

The Soldier's View: The Civil War Art of Keith Rocco (2004)

The New Annals of the Civil War (2004)

The Memoirs of Brigadier General William Passmore Carlin, U.S.A. (1999)

The Military Memoirs of General John Pope (1998)

Captain H.W. Chester: Recollections of the War of the Rebellion. (1996)

Robert has also written a number of book reviews for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

Robert I. Girardi lives and works in Chicago where he is employed as a homicide detective by the Chicago Police Department.

For more information, visit www.robertgirardi.com