Hello,

The November, 2005 meeting of the Clarksville Civil War Roundtable will take place on a special Thursday night session on November 17th, 2005. As always, the group meets in the cafe of Borders Books in Governor's Square Mall on Wilma Rudolph Blvd. (Hwy. 79) just south of Exit 4 off I-24 in Clarksville, TN. The meeting begins at 7 PM and is free and open to all interested members of the public.

This month we welcome the very popular Dr.Richard McMurry who comes to us from Roanoke, VA. One of the top authors and historians of the Civil War, McMurry specializes in the war in the Western Theater and to that end his program will be “A New Framework For Civil War History.” This is based on his most recent book, _The Fourth Battle Of Winchester: Towards A New Civil War Paradigm_. Besides being thought provoking, McMurry’s presentations are also quite entertaining.

The argument rages on as to which theater of the Civil War was the most critical to Union victory as well as most vital to the bid for Confederate independence. Beginning after the war, the Southern writers were dominated by veterans of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and it was not until the Confederate Veteran magazine, based in Nashville, that Western Confederates were able to get their stories out. Thus, much Civil War scholarship covered only the Eastern Theater in great detail. The trend began to shift to the West starting with Stanley Horn’s study of the Confederate Army of Tennessee years ago followed by the work of the late professor Thomas Connelly. Now Western Theater Civil War books come out almost as much as those for the East, and it shows that scholars have made serious examinations of the importance of the West. Many, including McMurry, have concluded that the Western Theater deserves primacy for not only positional reasons, but also economic. Magnifying the defense problems of the Confederates was the fact that three rivers bisected the South, used to great effect by the Union.

McMurry will cover how this change in scholastic view has come about and will then detail the how’s and why’s of that change. Within this, he will detail how the battles of the East led only to a stalemate while those of the West would lead to Confederate defeat. From the West would come the Union commanders that would smash Confederate armies by either capture or battle; men who would lead the United States Army for years after the war – Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Schofield, to name a few.

Richard McMurry is the author of several Civil War books, including _Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay In Confederate Military History_ (an essential study of the Confederate Army) and _John Bell Hood And The War For Southern Independence_, both listed on historian Gary Gallagher’s One Hundred Best Modern Civil War Books. The Hood biography won the Mrs. Simon Baruch University Award from the Unite Daughters of the Confederacy as well as the Fletcher Pratt Award from the New York Civil War Roundtable.

He is also the author of _Virginia Military Institute Alumni In The Civil War: In Bello Praesidium_ and _Atlanta 1864: Last Chance For The Confederacy_ , the latter book winning the Daniel M. & Marilyn W. Laney Prize in 2001 for best book by the Austin Civil War Roundtable. McMurry has also edited two books, _Footprints Of A Regiment_ by William H. Andrews of he 1st Georgia Regulars, and _An Uncompromising Secessionist: The Civil War Papers of Captain George Knox Miller, 8th Confederate Cavalry_, as well as the microfilm version of the Papers Of Zebulon Vance, who was North Carolina’s wartime governor. McMurry has also authored numerous articles for Civil War Times, Blue & Gray Magazine, Georgia Historical Quarterly and the Atlanta Historical Quarterly, among others. He recently received the Nevin-Freeman Award for his work in Civil War history from the Chicago Civil War Roundtable, the first CWRT in the country.

McMurry, a Georgia native, graduated from Virginia Military Institute with a degree in history. After serving at Ft. Campbell for 2 years, he earned Masters and Doctoral degrees from Emory University in Atlanta. He has been a professor of history at Valdosta State University and North Carolina State University. He is now a freelance writer and historian, hosting Civil War conferences and lecturing all over the country for Civil War groups. He is one of the most popular and entertaining speakers on the circuit today.

Please join us for a terrific program with Dr. Richard McMurry at the Clarksville Civil War Roundtable.

Greg Biggs
President