This Week on History Happy Hour: A trip back to the last 12 months of the Civil War, going behind the scenes in the White House, along the battlefronts in Virginia, and into the conspiracies of spies and secret agents.

Our tour guide is Scott Ellsworth, author of Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America by Scott Ellsworth.

Scott Ellsworth is the New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Game, winner of the 2016 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. He has written about American history for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Formerly a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, he is also the author of The World Beneath Their Feet and Death in a Promised Land, his groundbreaking account of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. Scott lives in Ann Arbor, where he teaches at the University of Michigan.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Our guest had technical problems, so Chris and Rick engaged in an hour of History happy Talk, answering questions, chatting about tours, aqueezing in the Ghost Army wherever possible! We will be rescheduling our guest, Tim Brady, author of "A Light in the Northern Sky" for some day in the future!

Sunday at 4PM ET, on History Happy Hour, where history is always on tap.

This Week on History Happy Hour: The 381st Bomb Group went into action over the skies of Europe in June 1943, and flew 297 missions before the end of the war. Based out of Ridgewell, UK, their story is the story of the 8th Air Force and the daylight bombing of Europe – hours of frozen monotony, moments of sheer terror over target, horrifying casualties, and ultimate victory.

Chris and Rick will dig into their story with Paul Bingley, co-author of the book “Bomb Group: The Eighth Air Force's 381st and The Allied Air Offensive Over Europe.”

Paul Bingley has worked in aviation for the past 30 years. He most recently helped market the world’s heaviest aircraft, the Antonov AN-225 'Mriya'. He is the current chairman of the Ridgewell Airfield Commemorative Museum in Essex and regularly delivers talks on the history of Ridgewell, and its long-term tenants, the 381st Bomb Group.