Draft:Charles W. Mitchell

Charles W. Mitchell (April 23, 1954 - ) is a social and political historian specializing in nineteenth-century U.S. history.

Mitchell is a native of Baltimore County, Maryland, the son of Braxton D. Mitchell, a publisher, and Elizabeth Byrd “Polly” Mitchell, a portrait artist. Mitchell is the eldest of four sons, all of whom graduated from St. Paul’s School for Boys in Brooklandville, Maryland. He earned a B.A. in political science and history from Pennsylvania State University, where he wrote for The Daily Collegian, was elected to the Mortar Board Senior Honor Society, and played varsity lacrosse. He has an M.A. in government and politics from the University of Maryland. He is married to Elizabeth Church Mitchell, a graphic designer, with whom he has two children: Abigail “Abbie” MacKinnon and Alexander “Alec” Mitchell.

Mitchell studies the American Civil War era, including its causes, political conflict, slavery, and emancipation. He has conducted extensive research on the impact of the war on civilians in Maryland and on the presidential election of 1860.^[1][2][3] As a travel writer for the Baltimore Sun, he wrote about historic sites in the Mid-Atlantic region.^[4]

His book, Maryland Voices of the Civil War (2007), probes the civilian experience of the war through letters, diaries, and other period documents.^[5] It received the Founders Award for Outstanding Scholarship on the Period of the Confederate States of America from the American Civil War Museum.^[6] Mitchell received a Lowell Thomas Gold Award in 2016 from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation for his book, Travels Through American History in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide for All Ages (2014), based on his work as a travel writer for the Baltimore Sun. His third book, The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered (2021), coedited with Jean H. Baker, presents fresh research and interpretations on the war in Maryland. He authored the chapter, “’Maryland is This Day…True to the American Union’: The Election of 1860 and a Winter of Discontent.”

Mitchell has published articles and book reviews in the Maryland Historical Magazine, published by the Maryland Center for History and Culture. He was selected as a Baltimore Historian-Scholar in 2018, for contributions to the history of Baltimore and Maryland.

Mitchell served as National Field Director of the American Land Trust Program at The Nature Conservancy from 1976 to 1977, for which he received the Oak Leaf Cluster for Outstanding Service. He subsequently joined Wills & Associates Public Affairs (1979–1984), where he worked on the firm’s Alaska lands project, which required congressional action to place public lands in Alaska under federal land-management programs, including the National Park System, National Wildlife Refuge, and National Forest System. The resulting Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act was signed into law by Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. Mitchell was also the principal author of a 1979 position paper on the issue for George H. W. Bush’s presidential campaign.

From 1985 to 2011, Mitchell worked as an acquisitions editor and publisher at Urban & Schwarzenberg and, later, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins/Wolters Kluwer Health. In 2012, he became Director of Alumni Engagement at The St. Paul's Schools, where he also served as a student advisor and coach. In 2024, he authored a report for the St. Paul's Schools on their historic associations with slavery.

In 1980, Mitchell was elected as an independent delegate from Maryland’s Seventh Congressional District to the 1980 Republican National Convention.

Mitchell is a trustee at the Maryland Center for History and Culture, where he also chairs the Publications Committee.^[7] He also serves on the board of the Monocacy National Battlefield Foundation and on the Advisory Committee of the American Civil War Museum.^[8] He is a court-appointed special advocate in Baltimore County for a child in foster care.^[9]