The next meeting of the Nashville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Monday, September 20th, 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 Atlanta Campaign Part 2 – Kennesaw To Jonesboro”

Earlier this year, our own Greg Biggs gave Part One of his program on the Atlanta Campaign. That program dealt with the commanders, armies, objectives and the opening phases from Ringgold Gap through the First Kennesaw Line. This next portion will pick up with Sherman’s attack at Kennesaw Mountain and conclude with the surrender of the city on September, 2, 1864. Sherman’s’ message to Abraham Lincoln, “Atlanta is ours and fairly won,” electrified the north arriving just in time to fend off further war weariness and the gloom of the massive Union casualties in Virginia.

The capture of Atlanta, the main military supply depot for the Western Confederacy and a vital transportation and factory center, was a blow from which the Confederacy never recovered. In fact, Greg argues, politically, it was the most important campaign of the war as it gave the northern voters enough confidence to re-elect Abraham Lincoln to a second term as well as their support for him to finish the war. The fall of Atlanta was the twilight of the Confederacy; save for the Tennessee Campaign later that year, which had zero hope of any relevant success, it was all downhill for the hopes of Confederate independence

This program will discuss the Confederate change of command, the three big battles around Atlanta itself (one of which came close to smashing one of Sherman’s armies in the Battle of Atlanta), the siege of the city, Union cavalry raids and their defeat by Joe Wheeler and much more. With Sherman cutting the final railroad into the city at Jonesboro, the Confederates had little choice but to give up the city.

Greg Biggs is program chair for the Nashville CWRT and president of the Clarksville CWRT. A past Associate Editor of Blue & Gray magazine, Greg is also a member of Clarksville, Tennessee’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee, the Company of Military Historians and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He has done research for notable Civil War authors and artists and is a specialist on Civil War flags. Originally from the Chicago area he has lived for a number of years in Georgia. There he became interested in the Atlanta campaign which he has studied for 25 years. He has led several tours of the campaign for Civil War groups and has walked its fields hundreds of times over the years.

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.