The Institute offers three major programs each year:
- The three-day Fall Conference includes speakers and battlefield excursions on interesting topics relating to the campaign (members only).
- The one-day Spring Symposium involves a series of timely talks and interactions on the campaign (members only).
- The weekly Summer Lecture Series features historians and researchers presenting their work on the campaign and the war (open to the public).
2027 Spring Symposium
[full program guide coming soon]
April 2-3, 2027
The 2027 Spring Symposium, with the theme The Hidden Machinery of War: Intelligence, Communications, and Logistics in the 1862 Maryland Campaign, will be held on Friday and Saturday, April 2 & 3, 2027.
Moving beyond the battle lines, this symposium explores the administrative, technological, and tactical lifelines that shaped the outcomes of South Mountain and Antietam. By re-examining the critical inputs of military intelligence, field communications, and supply chains, we reveal how the friction of information and resource management ultimately decided the fate of the campaign.
Speakers and tour leaders will include Scott Kenepp, Matt Borders, D. Scott Hartwig, Cory Pfarr, and Michael Hardy. The main event will take place at the Storer Ballroom at Shepherd University on that Saturday, with an optional Friday afternoon bus excursion following the Federal Signal Service to signal stations across the Antietam battlefield.
Registration will open during the 2026 Fall Conference in October.
2026 Fall Conference
October 9-11, 2026
The theme of the 2026 Fall Conference is “I shall take the field, and lead my troops in person” : Edwin Vose Sumner, the Second Corps, and the fight for the West Woods.
As the fighting around the Cornfield ended, Major General Edwin V. Sumner’s Second Corps arrived on the field. Sumner drove Gen. John Sedgwick’s division east toward the West Woods. Unbeknownst to these 5,500 men, two Confederate divisions that had participated in the fall of Harpers Ferry garrison had arrived and fell on Sedgwick’s men, causing horrendous casualties and forcing the remainder of the division to flee.
Registration opened on April 10, during the Spring Symposium, and will close on September 8, 2026 or sooner if sold out.
2026 Summer Lecture Series
June 1 – August 31, 2026
These free lectures are held in McKinley Hall at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Sharpsburg every Monday evening at 7:00 pm, June through August, and are open to the public.