Dick Titterington

Dick Titterington is theCivilWarMuse, an amateur historian with particular interest in the events which took place west of the Mississippi River during American Civil War. Like many people Dick became interested in the American Civil War after watching the Ken Burns documentary, “The Civil War.” Fascinated with Shelby Foote, Dick read his three volume "The Civil War: A Narrative", soaking up everything he had to say about the war. Then Dick read more books that focused on individual battles of the war, Antietam, Shiloh and, of course, Gettysburg. It was a number of years before Dick discovered that he was living in a state that was a hotbed of activity during the American Civil War. Indeed, the state of Missouri ranked third (behind Virginia and Tennessee) with 1,162 fighting events occurring during the American Civil War. So Dick shifted his focus to events in the Trans-Mississippi theater of the Civil War.

A number of years ago Dick decided to partner with a good friend and create a website, www.thecivilwarmuse.com, about the American Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi theater. The website provides virtual tours of Civil War battlefields with interesting facts about the battle and biographies of key individuals. The virtual tours allow you to travel back in time and personally take walking and auto tours of various battlefields and expeditions. Area maps, waypoints and pictures are provided to orient and guide you through your visit. Dick has enjoyed visiting Civil War battlefields and the website’s virtual tours have become a way of describing for others what Dick saw during his visits. Dick took the next logical step and began to share his experiences with others face-to-face.

So for the last few years Dick has been teaching a series of classes on the American Civil War for an organization called SPARK. These classes have focused on events during the 1850s and 1860s in Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas. SPARK is an acronym that stands for Senior Peers Actively Renewing Knowledge. SPARK is an Elderhostel Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) and a member of the Elderhostel Institute Network. SPARK partners with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which allows SPARK to operate in a collegiate environment supported by the intellectual and cultural resources of the university.

Dick is currently retired and living in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area after a 26-year career as an Information Technology professional.