Bravest of the Brave - by Mort Künstler

In Remembrance of Lieutenant General Steve Kitchen

It is with a heavy heart that news of Steve's passing has been received. Lieutenant General Steve Kitchen joined the ACWGC in May 2004, Graduated in June and was assigned to the Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) where he spent his entire 17 years of service in the Club. In 2007 Steve would go on to command the 1st Division, I (Longstreet's) Corps and from 2009 to 2015 he was Corps Commander of II (Jackson's) Corps. Also in January of 2009 Steve assumed the position of which he would leave the biggest impact and greatest legacy on, Chief of Staff of the Army of Northern Virginia (ANV), which he held until last year, retiring back to II (Jackson's) Corps in command of the 2nd Brigade of 2nd (Hill's Light) Division.

Steve was a great guy, friend to many in the Club & was the right man at the right time. He served with unwavering dedication to the CSA and the command positions he has held. Having assumed the Chief of Staff position during a time of crisis, he spent many years working behind the scenes as one of the club's most competent administrators. He served first under General John Newton and then under General Stewart Stiles, where they would lead the ANV for over a decade!

I had the privilege of knowing Steve for 18 years, having met him in 2003 when we were starting off in the former iNWC. Together for almost 10 years, we worked as webmasters & administrators there. He managed the game forms and the scoring of them for almost all of those years, doing everything "long handed", in the old days before automated systems. He was always precise & consistent and often caught my own mistakes in the admin work we did together. At a time when I was just starting out as a webmaster, he already had very good webmastering skills and taught me a lot. I'd never be able to work with PHP forms if it wasn't for him. Efficient & quick with scoring, updates & awards the iNWC's founder Tom Lachenmaier gave Steve the nickname "Lightning" a befitting term that would hold true for many years to come. He also helped build many wonderful graphics & images for that club and would continue to make a large amount of great graphics for the ANV & CSA.

I was not surprised in the least that these qualities shined through when he took over as the ANV's Chief of Staff. From that moment on the ANV would be well looked after. He not only created a brand new website for it, he organized, managed & updated an extensive ANV Officer Records Charts that tracks a whole host of data on current and former ANV officers and has proven to be very helpful over the years. He also meticulously created Officer Battle Dossier's (OBD) on every ANV officer, a feature on the site that I have not been able to live up to Steve's standards on updating them. When the former Army of Georgia (AoG) was folded into the ANV, Steve made short work adding in all the records into the ANV Charts and creating OBD's for the reassigned officers. Over the years he would issue almost every type of award, announcement, notice, report or promotion you could think of and with this all having been in Steve's trusted hands for such a long time, the tapestry of an archives he created & maintained, with over 1,000 files, is woven into the ANV & Club for the rest of our days as an organization. Because of this and his ability through every up & down the CSA had to stay the course, Steve has left an indelible mark on the Club.

When I was making changes to the Eastern Theater website years ago, I added in a photo of Walter H. Taylor to represent Steve on the page. We all probably know Taylor was Lee's most trusted & competent aide, keeping detailed records and acting as a "court of last resorts" in the post war era debates. Steve carried all these traits and over the years has been a little bit of a "court of last resorts" on issues in a few of the clubs.

Steve was a member of four clubs, ours, the former iNWC, the CCC & NWC. He joined all of them in either 2003 or 2004 and was an active member in the three around today right up until his passing. He played 297 games and had 15,065 points in all four clubs combined. In the former iNWC he would rise to the rank of Major General and serve as the Commander of the Anglo-Allied Army & the Allied Coalition Commander-in-Chief, serving on the Club Consul, which was a panel of 5 primary club administrators similar to our Cabinet here. In the CCC he would be known as Lieutenant General The Viscount Kitchen of Eutaw Springs, DSM and would eventually be the General Officer Commanding the Brigade of Guards. At the NWC, Field Marshal Steve Kitchen, 1st Earl of Halifax G.C.B. commanded the 3rd (King's Own) Regiment of Dragoons, 1st (Heavy) British Cavalry Brigade, Cavalry Corps in the Anglo-Allied Army (AAA) and held the honorary command of the 2nd Squadron, Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, Household Cavalry Brigade within the Guards.

Steve hailed from the UK, was born in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire. He was a Yorkshireman through & through. Went to school in the nearby city of Halifax, which is how he chose his nobility title at the NWC. Like a true Yorkshireman, he let me know that no Lancastrian title would do! He was a lifelong fan of the Bradford City Football Club (soccer for us Americans). He also liked photography & was a big fan of trains. For a while the ANV had an address that started with lner2868. He pointed me to this page http://www.railalbum.co.uk/steam-locomo ... -b17-1.htm which Liner 2868 is for Bradford City. Earlier last month Steve passed peacefully at home. He was 55 years old. Notice in his local newspaper is viewable at: https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/ ... __Kitchen/

Steve was very personable & well liked by all those who played games or interacted with him in the different clubs. He had two primary opponents over the years Dave Miller and Lucas Kling. Together Steve played 120 games with them both. His OBD record with the ANV can be viewed here: http://www.wargame.ch/wc/acw/sub/ANV/an ... tchen.html

You'll Be Missed Steve, but we know you're at peace now!

Your Friends at the American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

- In a similar fashion to Dave Danner & Derald Riggs' buy-a-brick donation for John Dragan, a gift In Memory of Steve has been made and a brick for him should be placed next in November in the circle at Gettysburg.

Remembrance Posts for Steve have also been made in the other two clubs:

NWC - http://wargame.ch/board/nwc/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16585

CCC - http://wargame.ch/board/cc/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10141