The Tennessee in the Civil War Message Board

Nashville TN CWRT - April meeting

Hello,

The next meeting of the Nashville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Tuesday, April 18th, 2023, in the visitor’s center of Ft. Negley Park, a unit of Metro Parks, Nashville, TN. This is located off I-65 just south of downtown between 4th Avenue South and 8th Avenue South on Edgehill Avenue/Chestnut Avenue. Take Exit 81, Wedgewood Avenue, off I-65 and follow the signs to the Science Museum.
The meeting begins at 7:00 PM and is always open to the public.

Our Speaker and Topic – “Confederate Collections of the Tennessee State Museum”

The Tennessee State Museum is a world class institution with amazing holdings in its collections. Of course, a central core of these is their Civil War collection consisting of Union artifacts but mostly Confederate since the state seceded from the Union in June 1861 and out thousands of men into the Confederate Army. The state also turned out numerous officers from colonel upwards to general ranks including Ben Cheatham, George Maney, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Gideon Pillow, Daniel Donelson and many more.

Thus, when the Tennessee Historical Society in the post-Civil War years began taking in artifacts, documents and more when the state museum began in the 20th Century many of those ended up in their collections. Our speaker this month, Chief Curator Richard Wright, will present a program in chronological order of many of these artifacts via a Power Point program.

Richard White, Chief Curator, manages the curatorial team, directs artifact acquisition and interpretation, engages with the public, and generally assists in the management and conservation of the collection. Richard has more than eight years of experience with the Tennessee State Museum, beginning in the Education Department before advancing to the Collections Department.

Richard is a native of Nashville and attended Hillwood Comprehensive High School. He holds a B.A. in History from Belmont University and a master’s degree in History from Middle Tennessee State University. Richard serves on the executive board of the Nashville City Cemetery Association. He is a contributing author and series editor for Civil War Flags of Tennessee, a cooperative publication from the Tennessee State Museum and the University of Tennessee Press. He is a contributing writer and editor for the Tennessee Historical Quarterly and is a 2022 graduate of the Tennessee Government Professionals Institute.

Please join us for this interesting program into some of the treasures held by the Tennessee State Museum. This will be a great peek into the museum’s collections.