September 15th - 2011
7:00pm Stewart County Visitors Center
Dover, Tennessee
The second meeting of the Fort Donelson Civil War Round Table will be held on September 15th in the Cumberland Room at the Stewart County Visitors Center. This month’s speaker will be Historian Randy Rubel of Clarksville, Tn. Randy is well known in the area as an active participant of the Frank P. Gracey SCV Camp in Clarksville as well as a founding member of the 50th Tennessee Infantry, Company A re-enacting group. He has consulted on books and productions including “Cry Havoc: A History of the 49th Tennessee” to “The Civil War” by Ken Burns. He is also an active member of the Montgomery County Historical Society and a staunch advocate for the preservation of Stewart and Montgomery County History.
His topic will be: “Confederate Forts in Montgomery County”. Clarksville, Tennessee was one of the largest tobacco ports in the United States and up to 1861 was a major exporter of dark fired tobacco in the world. A major defense system was engaged by the Confederate States of America to start fortifications throughout the Middle Tennessee area. Historians have written about the Battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, and how important the building of the forts was to the Confederacy and to the defense of Nashville, Tennessee. Not until recently have they realized how extensive the system was in the town of Clarksville. Local historians have known about Forts Clark and Sevier, but they did not know about the other forts until recently, and because of the research done by Greg Biggs, we now have a better idea to how extensive their plans were. Newspaper accounts in two of the largest media works in America, the NEW YORK TIMES and the NEW YORK HAROLD in February 1862 tell the readers that "CLARKSVILLE, TENNESSEE IS CAPTURED."
Meetings start at 7:00pm and are open to the public. For more information contact John Walsh at 931-801-5129.
John Walsh