• “War fare inevitably breeds corruption”

    Loreta Velazquez
  • “A woman labors to fight her own way in the world, and yet, she can often do things that a man cannot.”

    Loreta Velazquez
  • “My career has differed from that of most women.  Some things I have done have shocked persons for whom I have every respect.”

    Loreta Velazquez
  • “I was, despite my Spanish ancestry, an American, heart and soul.”

    Loreta Velazquez
  • “What a fearful thing this human slaughtering was.”

    Loreta Velazquez
  • “The way to keep a secret, is not to tell it to anybody.”

    Loreta Velazquez

Experts

best jessie portrait copy

Jesse Alemán

On camera and Advisor

Professor, American Literary Studies, University of New Mexico, USA Dr. Aleman centers his lessons and scholarship around two fields: nineteenth-century American literature and the invention of Mexican America focusing on the national identities that were forged after the 1846-1848 U.S. Mexico War. He wrote the introduction to the 2002 republished version of Loreta Janeta Velazquez’s 1876 biography, The Woman in Battle.   His 2004 essay, Crossing the Mason-Dixon Line in Drag: The Narrative of Loreta Janet Velazquez, Cuban Women and Confederate Soldier, was published in the book, Look Away,… Read More

DeAnne Blanton

DeAnne Blanton

On Camera and Advisor

Ms. Blanton is Senior Archivist at the National Archives specializing in the nineteenth century American armues,   She is co-authored They Fought Like Demons, published in 2002,  a book on women soldiers in the Civil War, which contains new research and important analysis on Velazquez in relation to hundreds of other documented American  women who fought as soldiers in the American Civil War.  Her article on Civil War women soldiers published in the spring 1993 issue of Proloque earned her the 1993 Sara Jackson Award for original scholarship.  

Catherine's best picture

Catherine Clinton

On Camera and Advisor

A noted Civil War and gender historian, Dr. Clinton founded a major in U.S. history at the Queen’s University Belfast, where she also holds a chair in American History.  She has published over 25 books on Civil War history, the South, and gender studies including:  The Other Civil War:  American Women in the Nineteenth Century (1984), Divided Houses:  Gender and the Civil War (1992), Tara Revisited:  Women, War, and the Plantation Legend (1995), and Mrs. Lincoln: A Life (2009). Her book, Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, received… Read More

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Carman Cumming

On camera

A Journalism professor at Carleton University in Ottowa, Carman Cumming has published a number of books including Secret Craft: The Journalism of Edward Farrer and Sketches from a Young Country: The Images of Grip Magazine. His most recent book, The Devil’s Game: The Civil War Intrigues of Charles A. Dunham, follows the career of Civil War spy, forger, journalist, and mastery of trickery, Charles Dunham and received much critical acclaim for it’s unprecedented level of research and depth.

Gallagher

Gary Gallagher

On Camera and Advisor

Dr. Gallagher is the John L. Nau II Professor in the History of the American Civil War at Virginia.  He is a specialist on Jubal A. Early,  Loreta Velazquez’s nemesis, on Civil War military history, and on the memory of the Civil War.  He’s authored or co-authored more than 20 books including Lee and His Army in Confederate History(2001), The American Civil War:  The War in the East, 1861-May 1863 (2000), Jubal A. Early, the Lost Cause, and Civil War History (2005), and The Union War (2011).  

Kirsten

Kirsten Silva Gruezs

On camera

Professor of Literature at University of California, Santa Cruz, Dr. Gruezs’ work is broadly based in the cultural and political relations between the U.S. and the rest of the Americas, particularly Mesoamerica and the Caribbean/Gulf coast during the nineteenth century. She’s written a multitude of essays as well as a critically acclaimed book: Ambassadors of Culture: The Transamerican Origins of Latino Writing which was selected for an Honorable Mention for the John Hope Franklin Prize for Best Book in American Studies in 2002 from the American Studies Association.

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Richard Hall

On camera (Deceased)

After years of experience in the field of historical research, Mr. Hall gained national acclaim as a writer and independent researcher on the Civil War. His publications on the Civil War include  “Women on the Civil War Battlefront,” and “Women in Battle in the Civil War,” expose his vast knowledge of the intricacies of war and put out in the open the stories of many women who fought valiantly in the front lines.  He has also written multiple articles such as Known but to God: Female Soldiers in… Read More

E. Leonard

Elizabeth D. Leonard

On camera

Dr. Leonard is a Professor of history and the director of women’s studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.  She is the author of Yankee Women:  Gender Battles in the Civil War and All The Daring of The Soldier:  Women of the Civil War Armies, which features a chapter of new research and analysis on Velazquez.

Vicki Ruiz

Vicki L. Ruiz

Advisor and on camera

Dr. Ruiz specializes in Latino History and is the Dean of Humanities and a Professor of History at University of California, Irvine.   She currently serves on the National Humanities Council and the National Council of the American Historical Association.  She is a former President of both the OAH (Organization of American Historians) and the AHA (American Historical Association).  The Latina Encyclopedia she she compiled with Virginia Sanchez-Korrol, the gold standard of it’s kind, has been featured in the New York Times, Hispanic Outlook, the Miami Herald, and Latina… Read More

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Virginia Sánchez-Korrol

On camera

Dr. Sánchez-Korrol has served as both co-director for Latino studies and Chair of the department of Puerto Rican studies at Brooklyn College where she was a tenured professor and served as coordinator of Caribbean studies from 1982 to 1984. She has also served on an external evaluation team for the Museum of the City of New York, as a consultant on the Brooklyn’s Hispanic Communities Oral History Project, and as one of three U.S. scholars on the international program committee of the Fifth International Congress on Hispanic Cultures… Read More

Renee

Renée Sentilles

On camera

As an associate professor of history and director of undergraduate studies at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Sentilles is pushing the envelope on women’s studies. With numerous publications from Articles in literary and educational journals,  to books, she explores mediums like the Internet through women’s studies.  Her critically acclaimed book, Performing Menken: Adah Isaac Menken and the Birth of American Celebrity,  is about a performer whose cross-dressing and public personal echoed Loreta Velazquez’ life and times, and she is a native  of New Orleans whose family goes back… Read More

Christina Vella

Christina Vella

On camera

A professor of history for over twenty years at Tulane University,  Dr. Vela now devotes most of her time to writing. Award winning author of such titles as and The Hitler Kiss: A Memoir of the Czech Resistance, Ms. Vella frequently serves as a consultant and writer for the U.S. Department of State. Her first book, Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and chosen as one of the best books of the year… Read More

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