DAR/SC250: Lunch & Learn with Derek Smith

Back by popular demand!

Hobkirk Hill DAR, thanks to a grant from SC250, invites you to come out and hear author Derek Smith at the Revolutionary War Visitor Center to share his latest book about Camden during the Revolutionary War. With two major battles occurring in Camden, Smith argues that this small frontier town was crucial to British success or failure in the Southern Campaign. 

Books will be available for purchase before and after the program by the author for $40.

About Derek Smith:

Education:1975 graduate of Robert E. Lee Academy, Bishopville, S.C., 1980 graduate of Georgia Southern University, B.S. degree in Journalism with History minor.

Professional: 1980 – 1982 – Staff reporter for Sumter (S.C.) The Item newspaper, one of the oldest and largest dailies in the state. Covered various law enforcement agencies, courts, hospital board, Air Force base news, general assignments and wrote a tennis column.

1982 –  1991 – staff writer for the Savannah Morning News and Savannah Evening Press. Primary duties were the police beat, general assignments and consumer issues, as well as rock concert reviews. Series on the plight of the state crime lab, Savannah’s vice problems and an article about a slain police officer’s family struggling to cope earned three Georgia Press Association awards.

1991 –  1998 – media/public relations officer for Memorial University Health, one of the largest healthcare systems in the country, based in Savannah, Ga. Duties included daily media contact, news releases and corporate communications for multi-state employee base of 5,000 plus.

1998 – Present – Freelance writer – Twelve books published overall, plus magazine and newspaper contributions, including articles in America’s Civil War, American History, Army, Cats, North & South, The Civil War Monitor, Savannah Magazine, Buffalo Spree, Buffalo News, Sandlapper, Pee Dee, Lee Magazine and others.

Published Books: Glory Yards – Rutledge Hill Press, 1993 Chronicles the football rivalry between the Universities of Georgia and Florida, year by year since 1904; Civil War Savannah – Frederic Beil, Publisher. 1997. A history of that Southern seaport and her people during the conflict., The Sentinels – Frederic Beil, Publisher. 2001. My first novel explores a ghostly Civil War submarine traveling through time; Lee’s Last Stand – Sailor’s Creek, Virginia, 1865 – White Mane Publishing, 2004. A nonfiction look at the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s final battle before Robert E. Lee’s Appomattox surrender; The Gallant Dead – Stackpole Books, 2005. Nominated for the 2006 Lincoln Prize, this book focuses on the 123 Union and Confederate generals killed in combat and the circumstances of their deaths; In The Lion’s Mouth – Hood’s Tragic Retreat from Nashville, 1864 – Stackpole Books, 2011. An examination of the last act in the Confederacy’s ill-starred Tennessee campaign; Sumter After the First Shots – The Untold Story of America’s Most Famous Fort until the End of the Civil War – Stackpole Books, 2015. Selection of the History Book Club; Kamallah’s Bracelet – Frederic Beil, Publisher, 2015. Novel set in Georgia in the 1960s; Gettysburg: South Carolinians in Battle – McFarland Publishing, 2021. Nonfiction account of some 5,000 Carolinians in the three-day battle; Bloody Savannah – The City’s Most Violent Era as Seen by a Crime Reporter – Exposit (an imprint of McFarland Publishing), 2023. A true-crime memoir of my police-beat-decade or so in Savannah, Georgia; Revolutionary Camden – South Carolina’s Bloody Epicenter in the War of Independence – McFarland Publishing, 2024; Gallica’s Thorns – Cushing Publishing, 2025. Novel – Story of an abused wife who violently frees herself from her marriage, embarks on a new life but is beset by her past as she seeks happiness.