Stephen Davis of Atlanta has been a Civil War buff since the 4^th grade. He attended Emory University, and studied under the renowned Civil War historian Bell Wiley. After a Master’s degree in American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he taught high school for a few years, then earned his Ph.D. at Emory, where he concentrated on the theme of the Civil War in Southern literature.

Steve is the author of a book on the Atlanta Campaign, Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, John Johnston and the Heavy Yankee Battalions (2001). He served as Book Review Editor for Blue & Gray Magazine from 1984 to 2005, and is the author of more than a hundred articles in such scholarly and popular publications as Civil War Times Illustrated and the Georgia Historical Quarterly.

His book, What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman’s Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta, was published by Mercer University Press in 2012. In a review in Civil War News, Ted Savas calls Steve’s book “by far the most well-researched, thorough, and detailed account ever written about the ‘wrecking’ of Atlanta.”

Last year Dr. Davis served as a speaker and consultant for the television documentary, “When Georgia Howled: Sherman on the March,” a joint production of the Atlanta History Center and Georgia Public Broadcasting.

He writes a regular column, “Critic’s Corner,” on Civil War bibliography, for Civil War News, the monthly newspaper.

Steve is also a popular speaker to Civil War Round Tables and historical societies. He has spoken on “What the Yankees Did to Us” to the Civil War Round Tables of Buffalo, New York and Providence, Rhode Island (and got away with it!). He has given talks at the annual meeting of the American Civil War Round Table (UK) in London. His favorite event was a couple of years ago when he addressed President and Mrs. Carter and family on the role of Copenhill (the Carter Center) in the battle of Atlanta.

In May 2016 Savas Beatie published a new paperback written by Steve:

A Long and Bloody Task:

The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton

through Kennesaw Mountain to the Chattahoochee

May 5-July 18, 1864

His companion volume will be released later in the summer of 2016:

All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign

From Peach Tree Creek to the Surrender

July 18-September 2, 1864

Next year Ted Savas will release Steve’s next book, tentatively titled Spurs Without Greatness: A Study of John B. Hood’s Generalship in 1864.