The next meeting of the Nashville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Monday, August 16th, 2010, 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 and Greer Stadium. The meeting begins at 7:00 pm and is always open to the public. There is no charge to attend.

OUR SPEAKER AND TOPIC:

“The Battle of Corinth, October 3-4, 1862”

August through early October,1862 was the only time during the Civil War where the armed forces of the Confederacy were on the offensive in all theaters of war. Robert E. Lee was operating in Maryland; Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith were moving into Kentucky and Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi were also marching forward. This period was indeed, in the words of noted historian Ed Bearss, the true high water mark of the Confederacy.

Also on the offensive in northern Mississippi was the Army of the West, troops brought over from Arkansas for the Shiloh campaign (but arriving too late), under Generals Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price. The original plan was for them to move into west Tennessee and prevent Grant from sending reinforcements to Kentucky. Instead, these forces moved into northern Mississippi fighting battles at Iuka and Corinth. Corinth was a vital railroad junction and it was hoped that if the Union army stationed there could be destroyed before the Confederates could move into Tennessee. But it was not to be. Corinth was a Confederate defeat with the retreating army being pursued and almost cut off by aggressive Union troops. Corinth is also the biggest battle of the Western Theater that most people know little about.

That will indeed change this month as Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center ranger Tom Parson joins us for his program on this pivotal battle. A new visitor’s center opened there a few years ago and more interpretation of the area has been done enhancing the experience for the Civil War buff.

Tom Parson is from southern California and a U.S. Navy veteran of 20 years. In 1999, he joined the National Park Service at Shiloh National Military Park and in 2004 became the park ranger assigned to the new Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center. Tom is interested in historic preservation and works with the parks across the country in that aspect. He is the author of Bear Flag and Bay State in The Civil War: The Californians of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry as well as “Hell On The Hatchie,” about the Battle of Davis Bridge in Tennessee just after Corinth, for Blue & Gray magazine. Tom has an upcoming Blue & Gray article on Gen. Earl van Dorn’s Holly Springs raid of December, 1862. He lives in Corinth, Mississippi with his wife Nita and daughter Sarah.

We hope you will join us for the July meeting of the Nashville Civil War Roundtable. The Nashville Civil War Roundtable is made possible by Nashville Metro Parks and the Tennessee Chapter of the Society of Military History.