Born in Lexington, Kentucky on February 5, 1949, Kent Masterson Brown is a 1971 graduate of Centre College of Kentucky; he received his juris doctor degree from Washington & Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia in 1974. Mr. Brown has practiced law for thirty-seven years from offices in Lexington, Kentucky and as counsel to Webster, Chamberlain & Bean in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Brown was the creator and first editor of the national magazine, The Civil War, and the originator of its Civil War seminars. He is the author of Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993 (a History Book Club selection and a recipient of the Award of Merit from the Wisconsin Historical Society) and The Civil War in Kentucky: Battle for the Bluegrass State, Mason City: Savas, 2000. He reissued and re-illustrated A.D. Kirwan’s Johnny Green of the Orphan Brigade through the University Press of Kentucky in 2002; it was the recipient of the Basil W. Duke Award as the best reprint of the year.
Mr. Brown’s recent book, Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics and the Pennsylvania Campaign, was released in April of 2005 by the University of North Carolina Press and has received rave reviews. It was a selection of both the History Book Club and the Military Book Club and was awarded the 2005 Bachelder-Coddington Award, the 2005 United States Army Historical Foundation Award for Distinguished Writing in History and the 2005 Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr. Literary Prize. Mr. Brown’s newest book, One of Morgan’s Men: Memoirs of Lieutenant John M. Porter of the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry, was released in February 2011 by the University Press of Kentucky. It is a History Book Club selection and is the winner of the 2011 Basil W. Duke Literary Award. He is presently writing another major study on the Gettysburg campaign entitled, General George Gordon Meade and the Gettysburg Campaign, for the University of North Carolina Press to be published in 2013. He has written numerous articles for scholarly historical journals, and regularly leads Civil War battlefield tours. Mr. Brown is a highly-sought-after speaker, and he lectures on Civil War history all across the nation.
As President and Content Developer for Witnessing History, LLC, Mr. Brown has written, hosted and produced DVD documentaries, including Retreat From Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics & The Pennsylvania Campaign (2008), and Bourbon and Kentucky: A History Distilled (2008). They both are being broadcast on Kentucky Educational Television (“KET”) and have received Telly Awards for 2008 and 2009. Bourbon and Kentucky was accepted by NETA for national broadcast on all PBS affiliates. Witnessing History, LLC has just completed a new sixty-minute documentary for PBS entitled: Henry Clay And The Struggle For The Union; it chronicles the compromises of 1820, 1833 and 1850 that narrowly averted civil war. It is now being broadcast on KET and is scheduled for national distribution by NETA in the Fall of 2011. Currently, Witnessing History, LLC is producing a documentary, Unsung Hero: The Horse in the Civil War, for HRTV, The Horse Network; in pre-production is a two-hour documentary, Daniel Boone and the Opening of the American West, scheduled for completion in the Summer of 2012.
Mr. Brown was the first Chairman of the Gettysburg National Military Park Advisory Commission, having been appointed by President George Herbert Walker Bush. He was the first Chairman of the Perryville Battlefield Commission, appointed by Governor Brereton Jones of Kentucky. Mr. Brown was a member of the Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and is now a member of the Board of Directors of the Gettysburg Foundation. He has been given numerous awards for his work in Civil War history as well as historic preservation.
Go here to see more about Mr. Brown’s work.
Mr. Brown lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife, Genevieve, and their children, Annie Louise, Philip and Thomas.
Kent Masterson Brown’s Lee Memorial Address
Listen to Kent Masterson Brown deliver the Lee Memorial Address in the Lee Chapel at Washington & Lee University, Lexington, Virginia on October 13, 2008. A Lee Memorial Address has been given each and every year in the Lee Chapel on the anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s death since 1870. Notables such as Generals Jubal A. Early and William N. Pendleton were among the first to deliver addresses there on that occasion. Lee and his family are buried in crypts beneath the chapel and the marble recumbent statue of Lee seen in the photograph is one of the most beautiful sculptures in the Nation.
Listen to Kent’s Lee Memorial Address