ABOUT
Bill Howard is a New York-based author and historian who has published numerous books and articles about military and social history. Howard has written about such diverse topics as the New York National Guard on the Mexican Border in 1917, the career of the vaudeville actress Elsie Janis, and the Civil War battle of Ball's Bluff.
Beginning in 2011, Howard authored a comprehensive series of articles about the Civil War that appeared in the Albany Times-Union newspaper. The articles followed the chronology of the war and commemorated the conflict's 150th anniversary.
Howard graduated from Manhattanville College (BA, 1983) with a degree in American Studies and was a Herbert H. Lehman Fellow at the University at Albany Graduate School of Public Affairs (MA, 1984). During a long career in state government, in which he served as a key advisor to two New York governors, Howard was named a Henry Toll Fellow by the Council of State Governments and completed the Program for Senior Executives in State & Local Government at Harvard's JFK School of Government. Howard was awarded the NYS Defense of Liberty Medal for his service during the September 11th attacks and The National Guard Association’s prestigious Patrick Henry Award (2003). In August 2020, he completed the MBA Essentials course of study at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Howard edited and provided introductions for reissues of several Civil War history classics, The Peninsula by Major General Alexander Webb, The Battle of Gettysburg by Samuel Adams Drake and Ohio at Gettysburg. He published a full-length history of the Civil War battle of Ball’s Bluff in 1994. In 2007, Howard published an edited volume, "The Civil War Memoir of William T. Levey," and in 2015, "What the RAF Airman Took to War" (Shire/Osprey). In 2018 he published The Battle of Ball’s Bluff: All the Drowned Soldiers (History Press).
While serving in state government, Howard spearheaded efforts to establish the New York State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York and served as a board member of the NYS Archives Partnership Trust.