Meet Your Host & Guide

J. Mark Powell - Author, Journalist, Historian

It all started 40 years ago, when his mother made him read a Civil War book in the third grade. “I hated it. Pretty ironic, given how things turned out,” he now laughs.

Not long after that, his parents took him to the Civil War battlefields at Lexington, Missouri and Pea Ridge, Arkansas. “That changed everything. Even at that early age, I understood something important had happened on the very ground where I was standing. Being there made all the difference. It transformed history into something real and alive. I was hooked. I fell in love with the Civil War era then and there.”

Forty years later, that passion still burns inside him. The Missouri native has visited almost every significant Civil War site in the nation. He has a collection of nearly 5,000 original Civil War-era photographs, letters and documents. He was a Civil War re-enactor in his younger days and won the 1988 Alabama Associated Press “Best Documentary Award” for a half-hour special he wrote, reported and co-produced on the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh. He co-authored the 2005 novel, THE CURSE OF CAIN (Forge/St. Martin’s Press), a thriller set around Lincoln’s assassination (find it on Amazon.)

J. Mark has spent more than 30 years as a broadcast journalist, reporting everywhere from the White House to the county courthouse. He’s worked for more than 13 years as a writer and news editor at a national TV news network based in Atlanta.

In his spare time, he’s an avid thoroughbred horse racing fan, collects Kentucky Derby memorabilia and is a member of the Honorary Order of Kentucky Colonels. He’s active in his church and community work, winning Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield’s “Volunteer of the Year” award in 2000.