Lance is a passionate researcher and collector of the Civil War era, with special emphasis on the 95^th New York and the 115^th New York.

He has more than 14 relatives who served in the Union Army during the Civil War.  He has been painstakingly writing the regimental history of the 95^th New York and has made over 150 trips to the National Archives in Washington, DC for research as well as numerous field trips to many battlefields where the 95^th was engaged, especially Gettysburg, Pa.

He retired in 2005, at age 55 after a carrier in the insurance world and moved to his home town of Saratoga Springs, NY.  In retirement he has served as President of the Friends of US Grant Cottage, (Grant’s last residence),  President of the Friends of the NY State Military Museum and organized the Saratoga Civil War Encampment which educated and entertained the residents for 7 years. He also served as Chair of the New York State Sesquicentennial Committee of the Civil War. This coming year he will serve as President of the Saratoga Springs Lions Club.  He co-authored and was business manager for “The Centennial History of Saratoga Springs, NY”, published in 2015 and authored the chapter on “Saratoga During the Civil War”.

His family connections to the Civil War era are most interesting and will be discussed during his lecture.

While other kids in his Middlesex, New Jersey, neighborhood were collecting baseball cards, 14-year-old Ron Coddington was browsing flea markets looking for old photographs. Little did he realize after he purchased his first photo in 1977 that collecting historic images would become a lifelong pursuit. He originally collected various formats of vernacular photography dating from the 1840s to the 1890s. Over time, he focused his collection on Civil War era cartes de visite, a paper format popular during the 1860s.

From 2001-2016, he authored Faces of War, a regular column in the Civil War News. Each month, Ron profiled a soldier, and each was illustrated with an original, wartime carte de visite photograph. His subjects were enlisted men and non-commissioned officers, and officers below the rank of colonel. Ron believes that appreciating the role of the volunteer soldier is key to understanding America’s greatest conflict. He writes, “The history of the Civil War is the stories of its soldiers and sailors.”

In 2004, a collection of columns became part of Ron’s first book, Faces of the Civil War: An Album of Union Soldiers and Their Stories. A companion volume, Faces of the Confederacy: An Album of Southern Soldiers and Their Stories, followed in 2008. Four years later, the publication of African American Faces of War: An Album marked the third book in the series. A fourth volume, Faces of the Civil War Navies: An Album of Union and Confederate Sailors, was released in 2016. All are published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. His next volume will profile the lives and contributions of nurses and other caregivers.

Ron also wrote for the New York Times Disunion series from 2011-2014. His contributions documented the experiences of the enlisted men and line officers who participated in the Civil War.

In 2013, he became editor and publisher of Military Images, a quarterly magazine dedicated to showcasing, interpreting and preserving early American photographs of soldiers and sailors.

Ron has participated as a speaker at numerous Civil War-related events, and at meetings for round tables and other organizations.

A 1985 graduate of the University of Georgia, Ron lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Anne, and pug Bella. He is currently Editor, Visuals, for The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Chronicle of Philanthropy.