David Inglehart

A native of Watertown, New York, David Inglehart graduated Colby College and earned an M.A. (in English) from Middlebury, and has worked variously as a journalist, teacher and multimedia developer. In 1995, with the aid of two teaching colleagues (see below) he published Fateful Lightning: the American Civil War, a multimedia textbook on CD-ROM. Three years later he completed a solo project, Quest for Empire: the Napoleonic Wars, and a third title, Born in Battle: the American Revolution was produced by the original team and released in 2001. The completed triology was eventually converted to the browser and launched as Age of Revolution. In 2024 he published a memoir, Near the Borderline: coming of age (and then some) on the northern frontier. He currently lives in mid-coast Maine.

William Hillenbrand

William Hillenbrand received a B.A. from the State University of New York at Cortland, an MA (in English) from Pennsylvania State University and an MA in History from the University of Virginia. He began his teaching career at the Northfield Mount Hermon School, where he taught English and History and coached football and baseball for many years. In 1992 he began writing the text of Fateful Lightning, completing the work over the course of three summers–a testament to the benefits of the academic calendar as well as his prolific talents as a writer and historian. Startinging in 1998, he repeated the feat with the completion of a comprehensive study of the American Revolution, Born in Battle. He later taught English at the Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida.

Dennis Kennedy

Dennis Kennedy earned a B.A. from Stonehill College and an MA and PhD (in English) from the University of Massachusetts. He wrote his dissertation on Mark Twain and also specialized in Irish Studies. In arranging and performing the music for both Fateful Lightning and Born in Battle, Dennis brought a rare combination of scholarship and musicianship to the work, researching and writing an extensive songbook and providing lead vocals as well as accompaniment on instruments ranging from piano to penny whistle.