On the Verge of the Great War," with historian Chuck Veit

The Civil War Roundtable of the Merrimack will meet on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at 7:30pm at the Hilton Senior Center, 43 Lafayette Rd (Rte 1), Salisbury, MA.

Chuck will present "On the Verge of the Great War," as Chuck says, "it is an international perspective on the Rebellion and how very close we came to starting a world war in 1866." 

Chuck Veit is founder of the U.S. Naval Landing Party, one of the few living history groups to portray the sailors and marines of the American Civil War. Chuck is also president of the Navy & Marine Living History Association, a non-profit dedicated to promoting an awareness of the role played by the navies in the history of America. The Association supports the efforts of its member living history units with insurance, research information, collateral, reproduction tools and weapons, and involvement in projects such as the search for the Civil War's first submarine, Alligator, in which NMLHA is partnered with the Office of Naval Research and NOAA. The NMLHA website is open to the public and has been included in the curriculum of at least one major university's Underwater Archaeology department. Since inception, NMLHA has grown to twenty-four naval living history groups located from coast to coast; its members portray navies from the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.

In addition to numerous articles published in Naval History magazine, Chuck has also reported on Alligator symposia in Groton, Norfolk and Philadelphia and written a museum report on the value of living history as a means of teaching naval history. He speaks with an estimated 10,000 visitors to the living history events he attends every year (NMLHA overall reaches about a quarter of a million). In cooperation with Dave Ekhardt, he researched and designed "The Navy in the Civil War" informational poster, which presents over five hundred naval events of that war.

The Civil War Roundtable of the Merrimack was founded October 1995 and is a non-profit group that promotes historic programs and discussion. We meet ten times a year on the 2nd Wednesday.