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Associate Professor of History

Dr. Samuel J. Reinhardt

History · School of Arts & Humanities
The only academic historian in the country whose entire scholarly identity is built on a one-hour skirmish that took place a half-mile from where he teaches — and who has somehow made that one-hour skirmish endlessly interesting to twenty undergraduates every fall.
✉[email protected] ☎(304) 457-6446 ◉Burbick Hall 224
PhD
WVU '09
2011
Joined AB
2
Books Authored
1861
His Subject's Year

About

Samuel Reinhardt is an Associate Professor of History at AB and the country's leading academic specialist on the Battle of Philippi (June 3, 1861) — the first organized land battle of the American Civil War, fought a half-mile down College Hill from his current office. He joined the AB faculty in 2011 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017.

A native of Wheeling, West Virginia, Reinhardt holds a Ph.D. in History from West Virginia University (2009), an M.A. in Civil War Studies from the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute (2006), and a B.A. in History from Bethany College (2003). His doctoral work, expanded in his first book The First Skirmish (2018), is now considered the definitive single-volume treatment of the Battle of Philippi.

At AB he is the founder and director of the Battle of Philippi Field School — a summer program that combines archaeological fieldwork, archival research, and public-history interpretation, and that has brought AB students into partnership with the West Virginia Department of Archives and History, the Civil War Trust, and the National Park Service.

Education

  • 2009Ph.D., History — West Virginia University. Dissertation: The First Skirmish: The Battle of Philippi and the Beginning of the American Civil War.
  • 2006M.A., Civil War Studies — U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.
  • 2003B.A., History (cum laude) — Bethany College (WV).

Teaching

Dr. Reinhardt teaches the U.S. History sequence, the Civil War & Reconstruction junior seminar, and directs the summer Battle of Philippi Field School.

  • HIS 215U.S. History to 1877A foundational survey of American history from the European encounter through Reconstruction. Required for all History majors.
  • HIS 325The Civil War & ReconstructionA junior seminar tracing the political, social, economic, and military history of the Civil War era. Includes a field trip to the Battle of Philippi site.
  • HIS 489Battle of Philippi Field School (Summer Intensive)A four-credit summer course combining classroom seminar, archival research, archaeological survey, and public-history interpretation at the actual Battle of Philippi site.

Research & Public History

Reinhardt's scholarly work is anchored in the deep, local archive of the Philippi area: he has read every available 1861 newspaper, regimental letter, court record, and church minute relating to the Battle of Philippi and its aftermath. The First Skirmish received the West Virginia Historical Society Book Award and the Society of Civil War Historians' Tom Watson Brown Book Award.

He is currently completing a second book — Aftermath: The Civil Society of Philippi, 1861–1865 — examining the experience of a small Appalachian town under wartime occupation. He is on the editorial board of West Virginia History, a frequent NPS Civil War Trails consultant, and the co-host of the regional public-radio podcast The Battle Lines.

Selected Publications & Presentations

  • 2018The First Skirmish: The Battle of Philippi and the Beginning of the American Civil War. West Virginia University Press.
  • 2024"The Forgotten Front: Why Philippi Matters." Civil War Times, June.
  • 2022"A Town at War: Philippi 1861–1865." West Virginia History.
  • 2025Plenary, Society of Civil War Historians Annual Meeting, "Local Archives and the Lost Battles."
  • —Co-host, The Battle Lines (WV Public Radio podcast, 2021–present).

Honors & Service

  • 2024AB Faculty Award for Distinguished Scholarship.
  • 2020Tom Watson Brown Book Award, Society of Civil War Historians.
  • 2019WV Historical Society Book Award.
  • 2017Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure.
  • 2009WVU Dissertation Award.
Local history is the academic discipline most allergic to the small. Everyone wants to be Shelby Foote on the Mississippi. Nobody wants to be the historian of a sixty-minute skirmish in a town of three thousand people. Which is exactly why the Battle of Philippi has had to wait this long for its first decent book.— Dr. Samuel J. Reinhardt

Beyond the Classroom

Reinhardt lives in Philippi within walking distance of the historic Covered Bridge (which he has crossed by foot more times than any human alive). He is a serious vintage-firearm collector — a hobby that began as research and grew, by his wife's account, "past what could plausibly be called research."

He is a Sunday-school teacher at Calvary Baptist Church of Philippi, a volunteer with the Barbour County Historical Society, and a tireless guide for visiting Civil War tour groups (he gives free walking tours every Saturday from April to October).

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