Kraig McNutt is the director of The Center for the Study of the American Civil War (CSACW), which houses the Kraig McNutt Civil War Collection. The CSACW was founded in 1995.

The main web site for the CSACW is The Civil War Gazette (CWG).

The CSACW is primarily focused on the Western Theater of the American Civil War.

About the Western Theater Wikipedia writes:

The Western Theater was an area defined by both geography and the sequence of campaigning. It originally represented the area east of the Mississippi River and west of the Appalachian Mountains. It excluded operations against the Gulf Coast and the Eastern Seaboard, but as the war progressed and William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union armies moved southeast from Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1864 and 1865, the definition of the theater expanded to encompass their operations in Georgia and the Carolinas.

The CSACW researches and collects items on the following topics of interest related to the Civil War:

• Sherman’s 1864 campaign, especially his March to the Sea, and his Atlanta action.
• Hood’s Middle Tennessee campaign, particularly the Battles of Franklin and Nashville.
• Regiments the CSACW focuses on include Indiana (11th Cav., and the following infantry units: 44th, 58th, 63rd, 65th, 80th, 120th and 128th; and Kentucky (Union) 6th Cavalry.
• Tennessee actions and battles, including: The Battle of Shiloh, Forts Henry and Donelson, Battle of Stone’s River, the Battle of Thompson’s Station, Hood’s Retreat
• Middle Tennessee locations and related: Franklin, Nashville, Brentwood, Triune, Thompson’s Station, College Grove, Williamson County
• Battle of Corinth (MS), and Iuka.
• Miscellaneous: Robert Smalls, the Wallace-Taylor boys of Gibson County, Beaufort, S.C., Slavery, Irish songster Barney Williams, Harper’s Weekly, Leslie’s Illustrated, and daily Civil War newspapers.

If you have letters, documents or items of related interest you’d like to share with the CSACW please contact us. We’d be delighted to make them more accessible through the CSACW with your permission.

Mr. McNutt is active in Civil War preservation efforts in Williamson County, Tennessee, and is an active member of the Williamson County Historical Society. He holds severa; academic degrees, both undergraduate and graduate, with concentrations or majors in history, philosophy, communications, theology, languages, archaeology and information science.

Mr. McNutt is available for speaking at schools, Civil War round-tables, charitable events, conferences, programs, symposiums, etc. To contact him email him at tellinghistory[at]yahoo.com

Recommendations on behalf of Mr. McNutt

Kraig McNutt brings with him not only years of study and understanding, but the necessary passion to make the cold facts of history come alive. Driven by that passion, Kraig has honed his studies into scholarship and his scholarship into understanding. As the Civil War slips further and further into a dim past, we are fortunate to have Kraig breathing life back into the story.

Robert Hicks, best-selling author of The Widow of the South

Kraig McNutt is an enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and passionate student of the Civil War. He has for a number of years maintained one of the finest websites on the conflict and possesses, along with a wealth of knowledge, a deep inner appreciation of what the war meant for those who lived through it and for us their descendants. I highly recommend him to groups seeking a top-flight Civil War speaker.

Steven E. Woodworth, Professor of History, Texas Christian University

Kraig McNutt is an omnivorous reader, thinker, writer, researcher, advocate, and speaker–not only on the American Civil War, but on a host of other historical and cultural issues. His educational and professional background would indicate that he is qualified to speak on many of these issues–but, we all know folks who are qualified yet they bore us to tears. Not Kraig. His lively and engaging style makes history come alive.

George Grant
Pastor, Parish Presbyterian Church
Founder, King’s Meadow Study Center