Jack Dempsey wasn’t alive during the Civil War, but it has been alive for him nearly his entire life.

His first encounter came as a toddler in 1955 during a family visit to Manassas National Battlefield Park. The Stonewall Jackson monument was still new in a photo of Jack perched on its granite base.

Like many of his generation, Jack was entranced by Bruce Catton’s The Picture History of the Civil War published by American Heritage in 1960. As an 8-year old, he waited with anticipation for the debut of The Americans, a 17-episode NBC television series that aired from January-May 1961.

He and his two brothers found the 1962 Topps graphic Civil War cards too compelling not to acquire.

On a June 1963 weekend road trip to Gettysburg, his grandfather (who remembered Decoration Day veterans’ parades when a boy) hired a licensed battlefield guide for a tour of the battlefield in their family station wagon. A summer sojourn in 1967 in the nation’s capital enabled a snapshot of the brothers in front of the iconic monument at Manassas.

Jack’s extensive book collection includes valued volumes from those early years.

In summer 1973, a congressional internship enabled Jack to experience battlefields within a day’s drive of Washington, D.C. Most significant, he made his third visit, with photos taken in the familiar field, to the Manassas visitor center. These images feature his companion, a statuesque young woman and lover of verdant open spaces, in whose cerulean Malibu convertible they made the trip.

Suzzanne consented to marry Jack six months later. He had returned for the final year at Michigan State University, passions kindled, and sought out advanced Civil War coursework with noted scholar Frederick D. Williams. As newlyweds starting from scratch in July 1974, excursions to Civil War battlefields proved a cost-effective date. After they moved to Chicago in 1977, twice-daily rail commutes to the office gave time to enjoy discounted Civil War sets acquired from the History Book Club. His understanding wife urged him to patronize the Abraham Lincoln Book Store, where he acquired his first Official Records volume. She also suggested he collect classic, affordable National Park Service historical handbooks.

In Chicago, as he and his beloved spouse worked on genealogy side-by-side at the Newberry Library, Jack was thrilled to discover a pair of ancestors had enlisted and fought in an Ohio regiment. One, wounded at Shiloh, was taken prisoner at Brices Cross Roads and spent months in Andersonville.

Fast forward to the early 2000s, after job changes, children, and other life events: Jack contemplated the upcoming 150th anniversary of the Civil War and hoped, somehow, to be involved in its commemoration, hearkening back to the Centennial in his boyhood. A long lunch with a family friend and political leader led him to seek an open seat on the Michigan Historical Commission – perhaps it could enable officially participating in the Sesquicentennial. After two trying years, Jack received the coveted appointment in June 2007. Six months later, the Governor of Michigan providentially issued an executive order directing the Commission to champion the commemoration.

Jack served as the first chairperson of the Commission’s Michigan Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee and remained a member until it finished its work. As an outgrowth of “Michigan Day at Antietam,” co-produced with the NPS in August 2012, he and close colleague Brian James Egen embarked on a unique mission, erecting a monument to Michigan’s contributions to emancipation and victory at the Antietam National Battlefield Park. Launching together a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2013 – the Michigan Civil War Association – they’ve celebrated expansion of the board of directors, raising of several tens of thousands of dollars, and commissioning of a famed sculptor who is fashioning a model of the monument as of summer 2022.

While praying for the Commission appointment, Jack launched a weblog in April 2007 entitled “Michigan and the Civil War.” After a thousand posts and well over a quarter-million words, the final issue appeared in November 2017. Its content drew the attention of The History Press; a cold call invited Jack to submit a manuscript since, the acquisition editor marveled, “the Civil War is hot right now.” It yielded his first book, the award-winning Michigan and the Civil War: A Great and Bloody Sacrifice, published in 2012. Suzzanne served as its chief editor.

All told, Jack’s Civil War authorship includes three books (one co-authored with Egen), seven articles, and contributions to other publications, with more on the way. Retirement from the practice of law in 2019 and from local government positions in 2020-2022 now enable him to concentrate on telling more unknown and forgotten stories focusing on Michigan’s Civil War heritage. He remains a member of the Abraham Lincoln Civil War Round Table in his hometown of Plymouth Township, Michigan, a contributor to the American Battlefield Trust, on the board of directors for the Detroit Historic Civil War Society, a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, the Society for Women and the Civil War, the Society of Midland Authors, and the Military Writers Society of America.

With bride Suzzanne by his side, he continues to walk hallowed battle grounds and to gain comprehension of the unsurpassed love and unselfish sacrifice they represent.

Jack hails from the Bruce Catton school of history. How would he explain that his life’s course has been intertwined with the great War for the Union and Emancipation? I am a Lincoln man, he maintains, and as such subscribes to the truth of the great leader’s adroit admonition:

“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.”