The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, August 19th, in the café of Borders Books in Governor’s Square Mall. This is located on Wilma Rudolph Blvd (Hwy 79) south of Exit 4 off I-24, then head south a bit. The mall is on the left. 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. Members please bring a friend or two – new recruits are always welcomed.
OUR SPEAKER AND TOPIC:
“The Galvanized Yankees: Confederate Prisoners Of War in Blue”
In 1964 director Sam Peckinpah released his first big budget film “Major Dundee,” starring Charlton Heston, Jim Hutton and Richard Harris. It was the story of an out-manned U.S. cavalry unit fighting renegade Apache Indians along the U.S.-Mexico border during the Civil War. Short of manpower due to the much bigger events in the east, Heston was forced to enlist a number of Confederate POWs into his command under the command of Harris. The film brought to the public a very little-known episode of the Civil War; the Galvanized Yankees, Confederate prisoners who would rather fight Indians than remain in POW camps.
This month’s program, by Dr. Michele Butts of Austin Peay State University will focus on the first such unit raised by the U.S. Government, the 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry, as well as the history of this project; how well it did or did not work; what the Confederates were offered for enlisting as well and their motivations for doing so; and its aftermath. Based on her book, “Galvanized Yankees On The Upper Missouri: The Face Of Loyalty,” Dr. Butts will examine all of this and much more. This regiment built forts to protect Western migration, patrolled the region, and suffered through the severe winters of the West, far tougher than the Southern climates these men came from. What these men offered, in the words of one of their officers, was “the fruits of a reunited nation.”
It also goes with out saying that Plains Indians were often hostile to the military no matter what color uniform they wore for they attacked Federals and Confederates alike as units from both sides operated in Texas and New Mexico Territory. From Minnesota to Utah, the U.S. Army fought a war within the Civil War that is often forgotten about by most Civil War students today.
Dr. Michele Butts is a Clarksville native with Bachelors and Masters degrees from Austin Peay. Her doctorate degree, under the guidance of famed Western historian Paul Hutton, is from the University of New Mexico. She is currently a Professor of History at Austin Peay history department and has taught in Kentucky as well as New Mexico. Sadly, her book is out of print but can be obtained online from a number of sources.
Please join us for what will be a very unique program on a little known subject of the war by one of its finest experts!
Greg Biggs
Clarksville CWRT