Ormsby Mitchel: Astronomer — General — Visionary
Prior to the Civil War, Ormsby Mitchel was the most celebrated astronomer in the United States: he built the largest observatory in the country, and his lectures on the wonders of the heavens drew huge crowds. As a Union general during the war, he captured Huntsville, Alabama, and was responsible for the famous raid that became known as The Great Locomotive Chase. He then founded the first community for freed slaves in the nation. Drawing from extensive research and a wealth of images, George Melrod’s special holiday presentation for the LA Civil War Round Table will trace the tragic life and extraordinary career of this forgotten American visionary. If you have witnessed George’s first two talks, you can trust him when he says this talk, “Should be epic!”

Mr. George Melrod
George Melrod graduated Harvard University, but has been a student of the Civil War all of his life. Over the last 30 years he has written various screenplays and has published extensively about visual art and culture. From 2006–2017, he was the editor of the largest contemporary art magazine in California and the Western US. As a fiction writer of the Civil War era, he remains fascinated by the lesser-known characters and human interest stories of the American Civil War. His previous presentations have included “John F. Reynolds and James B. McPherson and the Loves They Left Behind,” and “John Gibbon: Iron Man of the Army of the Potomac.”