“Road to Revolution” Seminar at Fort Ligonier

Join us for an extraordinary two-day "Road to Revolution" Seminar featuring a distinguished panel of speakers who will discuss Revolutionary moments in history to celebrate America's 250th anniversary!

For America’s Semiquincentenial anniversary, Fort Ligonier is partnering with Emerging Revolutionary War Era to bring you all the REVOLUTIONARY information you desire! Learn about the crucial ties that connect the French and Indian War to the War for American Independence with Revolutionary topics!
2026 Seminar Speakers:

Michael C. Harris
Michael C. Harris is a graduate of the University of Mary Washington and American Military University. He has worked with the National Park Service in Fredericksburg, Virginia; Fort Mott State Park in New Jersey; and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission at Brandywine Battlefield. Mike has led tours and staff rides at numerous East Coast battlefields. His first book, Brandywine, received the American Revolution Round Table of Richmond Book Award in 2014.

Daniel Welch
Dan Welch has served as editor of Gettysburg Magazine, a National Park Service ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park, and Education Programs Coordinator for the Gettysburg Foundation. He co-authored two books in the Emerging Civil War Series: The Last Road North: A Guide to the Gettysburg Campaign, 1863 and Never Such a Campaign: The Battle of Second Manassas, August 28–30, 1862. His latest work, Conquer or Die: The 1776 New York Campaign, explores the important but often overlooked battles for New York during the Revolution’s pivotal year.

Greg Urwin, Ph.D.
Gregory J.W. Urwin is a professor of history at Temple University, a prize-winning author, and a former president of the Society for Military History. He recently retired as general editor of the Campaigns and Commanders book series at University of Oklahoma Press, which he helmed since 1999. A specialist in U.S. and British military history, Urwin earned his PhD at the University of Notre Dame. During Professor Urwin’s decades of teaching, he trained twenty-six Ph.D.’s in military history.
Urwin is an award-winning author whose work has been recognized by the Marine Corps Historical Foundation, the Little Big Horn Associates, and the Eastern National Park and Monument Association. He has written nine books, including his latest, When Freedom Wore a Red Coat: The British, the Enslaved, and the War in the South, 1780-81. He has also appeared in numerous documentaries, including programs on the History Channel and Pennsylvania Cable Network.

Kevin J. Weddle, Ph.D.
Kevin Weddle is a Distinguished Fellow and a military historian at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the US Military Academy, a combat veteran, and served over 28 years on active duty in the US Army before retiring as a colonel. He is a multiple award-winning author of books and articles, including the critically acclaimed and best-selling The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2021), winner of six national and international literary awards including the Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History and the Society of the Cincinnati Prize. He leads military and civilian groups to battlefields around the world and specializes in the American Revolution, the American Civil War, the Second World War, general military history, and military technology.

James M. Vaughn, Ph.D. “The Great War for Empire and the Origins of the American Revolution: A Revisionist Account.”
James M. Vaughn is a historian of the global British Empire and the Atlantic world during the eighteenth century. He teaches at the University of Chicago, where he serves as an Associate Instructional Professor in the College and an Affiliate Faculty Member in the Department of History. He is the author of The Politics of Empire at the Accession of George III: The East India Company and the Crisis and Transformation of Britain’s Imperial State (Yale University Press), the co-editor of Envisioning Empire: The New British World from 1763 to 1773 (Bloomsbury) and Capitalism: Histories (Boydell & Brewer) and is currently writing a book on the origins of the American Revolution.

About the “Road to Revolution” Seminar and the Braddock Road Preservation Association
The “Road to Revolution” Seminar honors the legacy of the Braddock Road Preservation Association.
The Braddock Road Preservation Association was formed in 1989 as the Jumonville Preservation Association. It was formed to research, develop, interpret and promote the French and Indian War history of Jumonville, Dunbar’s Camp, and the Braddock Road. In 2025, the organization was dissolved after 36 years, but their seminar continues at Fort Ligonier.
Fort Ligonier is partnering this year with the Emerging Revolutionary War (ERW) ERW, which serves as a public history-oriented platform dedicated to sharing original scholarship and discussion on the American Revolution. The ERW encourages our citizens to learn about our nation’s founding at the original places where the historic events occurred via their blog, podcasts, tours, and on-site videos.