The Center for Research on Vermont has awarded historian Howard Coffin its 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award for his research into the Green Mountain State’s role in the Civil War.
The award honors “individuals who have made outstanding contributions to
the state of Vermont.”
Coffin, a 1960 Woodstock Union High School graduate, lives in Montpelier. He has written numerous books about Vermont’s Civil War history, including “Something Abides: Discovering the Civil War in Today’s Vermont” and “Nine Months to Gettysburg: Stannard’s Vermonters and the Repulse of Pickett’s Charge,” according to his Vermont Humanities Council Speakers Bureau biography.
“For Howard, Vermont’s Civil War is far more than details of military campaigns and battles; it is the lives of Vermont men and women during and after the war, the triumphs and tragedies of Vermonters on the front lines and here at home, and the human impact and importance of the conflict that touched our hearts with fire,” according to a news release from the Center for Research on Vermont, which is based at the University of Vermont in Burlington.
Coffin received the award during the Center for Research on Vermont’s annual meeting on May 5, according to the release. Former Vermont Gov. James Douglas introduced Coffin.
