Robert Lee Hodge: Biography
Raised in Ohio, Rob took a keen interest in the Civil War at the age of four when he began playing with his older brothers' military figurines. His interest soared when he was told that he was named after Robert E. Lee. At age five he began going to the library and checking out Civil War books. He grew up hearing stories about the Civil War read to him by his mother. Cutting lawns as a kid in the '70s and '80s to buy Civil War memorabilia, he immersed himself in the subject. In 1981, at age 14, Civil War reenacting took hold of him. In 1984, Rob was a finalist in the National Congressional Arts Competition in Washington, D.C. for his Civil War painting. In 1985, he went on to attend Kent State University's Fine Arts program, focusing on film, sculpture, painting, and drawing, where he emulated the style of Winslow Homer. In 1991, he moved to Virginia where his Civil War passion exploded. He committed himself to battlefield preservation after seeing the daily destruction of America's historic sites. He served as an intern with the National Park Service's Civil War Sites Advisory Commission.
In February 1998, Rob was featured in The New Yorker, with a full-page photo. Most recently, Rob has been featured in the New York Times best seller Confederates in the Attic. In the book Rob hosts author Tony Horwitz on a whirlwind tour of Civil War battlefields and museums. (Confederates in the Attic was nominated for the Don Imus Award this past February.) In August 1998, Rob was featured on National Public Radio, and on Tom Snyder's "Late Late Show" in May of that year. Because of his zeal for the Civil War and commitment to historical interpretation, Rob was featured as a main figure on the prime-time PBS program "Going Places" in June of 1998. Rob is the only reenactor ever featured on the front page (with illustration) of The Wall Street Journal, where he appeared in June 1994.
Rob has worked on numerous Civil War-related film and television programs since 1985, including ABC's "North and South," TNT's "Gettysburg," and "Andersonville." For several years he was a coordinator for the Greystone Communications series "Civil War Journal," which aired on the Arts and Entertainment Channel and the History Channel. Rob has assisted on several independent films that are Civil War-related, as well as on the Discovery Channel.
Rob has been employed for historical research for several years, working with nationally-recognized experts. Among his many credits, he has researched for Time-Life Books for their Voices of the Civil War book series and South Peak Interactive, an interactive multimedia producer.
He has just finished working with Time-Life Books on a six-hundred page work titled, The Illustrated History of the Civil War, and has also recently written with Jim McPhearson, Ed Bearss, and Brian Pohanka a volume on Federal soldiers letters written to the New York Sunday Mercury called, Writing and Fighting the Civil War.
Earlier last year he formed Wide Awake Productions (named after the 1860's Wide Awakes), a film production company dedicated to Civil War preservation and interpretation. Wide Awake has created three products in 1999: "Saving Civil War Battlefields," the award-winning "Chickamauga: High Tide in the West," and a yet-to-be-named television pilot.
He is currently writing a preservation column for America's Civil War. Most recently Rob has written for The Washington Post on the Civil War in Loudoun County, Virginia.
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Last revised: September 25, 2000