Hello,
The March, 2008 meeting of the Clarksville Civil War Roundtable will be held Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 7 PM in the cafe of Borders Books store in Governor's Square Mall. This is located on Wilma Rudolph Highway (US 79) just south of Exit 4 off I-24 in Clarksville, TN. The meeting is always open to interested members of the public and you do not need to be an expert to attend!. We meet the Third Wednesday of each month.
OUR SPEAKER AND TOPIC
Our program this month is being presented by another return speaker, Dorothy Kelly of the Knoxville CWRT. Her program for the evening will be "East Tennessee Union Rebellion and Bridge Burnings of 1861."
Early in the Civil War, loyal East Tennessee Unionists expected the Federal Army in Kentucky to march triumphantly into East Tennessee, liberating them from Confederate occupation. While some arms were sent to the Unionists, no Federal army appeared.
In the fall of 1861, Rev. William B. Carter of Carter County presented a plan to President Abraham Lincoln and Gen. George B. McCellan for an invasion of East Tennessee by troops stationed in Kentucky and a simultaneous attack on the vital Confederate railroad which ran through East Tennessee. Both Lincoln and McCellan approved the plan which called for the burning of nine railroad bridges between Bristol, TN, and Bridgeport, AL. The bridges were to be burned by loyal Unionists living in the vicinity of each bridge.
On the night of November 8, 1861, the Unionists struck. Of the nine bridges scheduled for destruction, five were successfully burned. At numerous sites, hundreds of armed loyalists gathered to join the invading Federal army. The "Lincolnites," however, suffered a bitter disappointment. The army, perched on the Kentucky border awaiting orders to move into Tennessee, was recalled and the invasion canceled, leaving the loyalists exposed to the wrath of the Confederate authorities.
The alarmed Confederates declared martial law, and rushed troops to East Tennessee to put down the rebellion and to block the expected invasion. This plan and the fate of the Unionists will be the topic of the March presentation.
Dorothy Kelly is a native of Knoxville, TN. Her ancestors fought in both Confederate and Union armies and she has been interested in Civil War since she was a child. She is a Charter member of the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable, and served two terms as President. She is also a Founding Board member and past president of the Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association. She was appointed Honorary Tennessee Colonel and aide-de-camp to the governor for her work in preserving East Tennessee Civil War history and sites.
She has done presentations on East Tennessee and the Civil War to various round tables including Chattanooga, Knoxville,Tri-Cities, Clarksville and Middle Tennessee in TN; Western North Carolina; Rappahannock Valley and Powhattan in VA; St Louis, MO; Chicago, IL; Milwaukee, WI; East Tennessee Historical Society, as well asseveral county historical societies and numerous service organizations. She has authored several articles on East Tennessee history, including Sanders’ 1863 East Tennessee Raid, North & South Magazine’s December 2002 issue; a biography of Gen. William P. Sanders, North and South Magazine, March 2004 and The Bridge Burnings and Union Uprising of 1861 in Tennessee Ancestors, August 2005. Several of her articles on East Tennessee’s Civil War history are also on the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable’s web site at www.discoveret.org/kcwrt
Please join us as Dorothy Kelly speaks on "East Tennessee Union Rebellion and Bridge Burnings of 1861 ” at the March, 2008 Clarksville CWRT meeting.
Greg Biggs
Clarksville CWRT