Jon-Erik M. Gilot has worked more than fifteen years in the field of public history. In addition to his work as a business archivist and records manager, he also serves as curator at the Captain Thomas Espy Grand Army of the Republic Post in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, and is active in numerous historical organizations.

The first shot of the American Civil War was not fired on April 12, 1861, in Charleston, South Carolina, but instead came on October 16, 1859, in Harpers Ferry, Virginia--or so claimed former slave turned abolitionist Frederick Douglass.