Oct 21, 2006 2 min read

California University of Pennsylvania’s Department of History and Political Science will host an event Wednesday marking the beginning of a new Civil War Roundtable on campus. The roundtable, which will meet once a month, is open to the public.

The inaugural event will be held Wednesday when the 140th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Company A, will perform live history demonstrations from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on the quad near Natali Student Center.

At 2 p.m., the history and political science department will hold a panel discussion in the Performance Center located in Natali Student Center. The panel will feature people who work to preserve their own local history.

Robert Eberly Jr., a retired lawyer from the Navy General Counsel’s Office, re-enactor and living historian with the 101st Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, will moderate the panel.

Eberly is a self-proclaimed Civil War buff ever since his father, the late Fayette County philanthropist Robert Eberly Sr., took him to Gettysburg at the age of 11.

Panel members include: Larry Sypolt, faculty of the public history program at West Virginia University; Barbara Finfrock, vice chairwoman of The Gettysburg Foundation (the group building the new visitors’ center on the battlefield at Gettysburg) and past chairwoman of The Friends of the National Parks in Gettysburg; and Ted Alexander, staff historian at the Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Md.

A reception and book signing will be held after the panel discussion in the Natali Center. The book signing will feature Eberly and his book “Bouquets from the Cannon’s Mouth: Soldiering with the Eighth Regiment of the Pennsylvania Reserves,” which traces the lives of five soldiers from Fayette County.

The roundtable and book signing are open to the Cal U community and public.

For more information, call the Cal U Department of History and Political Science at 724-938-4054.