Mary T. Hall

Mary Hall is a retired US Navy officer - and the great-granddaughter of Private George Washington Hall of the 14th Georgia Infantry. Like many families with deep roots in American history, she had ancestors who fought on both sides during the Civil War. George Washington Hall was the only one of her ancestors - at least to her knowledge - who left behind a diary. And what a diary it was - he wrote some 30 months of entries between 1862 and 1865 in a small book once owned by a Jacob Elsesser, a Union soldier, who wrote six months of entries himself before abandoning the diary outside of Richmond in 1862. And thus - a blue-gray diary.

She holds a B.A. in History, an M.A. in Military History, and two law degrees. Since 2005, she has served as adjunct faculty at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where she teaches the senior seminar on the Civil War and works closely with students on primary‑source research and historical interpretation. She has also published several peer‑reviewed journal articles on historical and law-related topics.