The Kentucky in the Civil War Message Board

Clarksville TN CWRT - January meeting

Hello,

January 18th, 2017 – Our 153rd meeting. We continue our eleventh year!

The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, Jauary 18th, 2017 at the Bone & Joint Center, 980 Professional Park Drive, right across the street from Tennova Hospital. This is just off Dunlop Lane and Holiday Drive and only a few minutes east of Governor’s Square mall. The meeting begins at 7:00 pm and is always open to the public. Members please bring a friend or two – new recruits are always welcomed.

Our Speaker and Topic - “Camp McDonald – Training Camp for Georgia Troops”

Big Shanty, Georgia got its name because of the railroad worker shanties built there when the Western & Atlantic Railroad was being built in the 1850s. The town is now better known as Kennesaw, Georgia.

During the Civil war, two major events took place here. The first and most important was the site of Camp McDonald, which became the largest training camp for Georgia troops in the state. Numerous regiments formed and trained here before being sent off to fight in the Eastern and Western Theaters of the Civil War.

The second event was the taking of the famous locomotive, “The General,” by Union spies while on its breakfast stop in Big Shanty in April 1862. The mission was to burn the railroad bridges north of here on the run to Chattanooga to prevent Confederate reinforcements from being sent to help that city, then under threat from a Union offensive in northern Alabama.

While most of Camp McDonald has been built over, efforts have been made recently to preserve portions of the training camp for interpretation and public visitation. It has been opened for some time now and is part of the Civil War history of Kennesaw along with the Southern Museum for Civil War and Locomotive History nearby.

Our speaker this month is Michael Shaffer from Kennesaw, Georgia. He holds BA and MA degrees in Military History and serves on the board of the Chattahoochee River Line Historic Area as well as being a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, Historians of the Civil War Western Theater and is the consultant for the Friends of Camp McDonald. Michael writes a regular column for Civil War News and is also an instructor at Kennesaw State University in the Civil War field and lectures across the country.

He is also the author of the book, “Washington County, Virginia in the Civil War,” and will have copies of his book for sale at the meeting.