Saturday, January 13, 2018

Announcing Our 525th Meeting
The Twenty-Second Annual Frank G. Rankin Memorial Lecture
DATE: Saturday, January 20                       
PROGRAM: 8:00 P.M.

  “Barren Victory: Who Won the Battle of Chickamauga?”

Presented by David A. Powell


As the sun rose over the battlefield of Chickamauga on September 21, 1863, the Confederate Army of Tennessee discovered that it had won a great – if costly – victory. It was the first such clear-cut success ever achieved by that army, after the bitter disappointments of Shiloh, Perryville, and Murfreesboro. But as the days passed, that triumph appeared less and less substantial.  And, despite having left the field to their foe, the Union Army of the Cumberland did not feel they had lost. Despite tactical disaster, they still held the objective of the campaign: Chattanooga. So who were the real winners and losers of Chickamauga? 

Historian and author David A. Powell returns to the Round Table and just in time to speak on the Battle of Chickamauga, our 2018 Spring Field Trip destination. David Powell is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute (1983) with a BA in history. He has published numerous articles in various magazines, and more than fifteen historical simulations of different battles.

For the past decade, David’s focus has been on the epic battle of Chickamauga, and he is nationally recognized for his tours of that important battlefield. The result of that study are the volumes, The Maps of Chickamauga (2009), Failure in the Saddle (2010), and the three volumes of a Chickamauga trilogy. The Chickamauga Campaign: A Mad Irregular Battle was published in 2014, The Chickamauga Campaign: Glory or the Grave appeared in 2015; and the final volume, The Chickamauga Campaign: Barren Victory, was published in 2016.  He is also a contributor to the Emerging Civil War blog.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

American Civil War Battlefields
Burnside Bridge
Antietam National Battlefield
Sharpsburg, MD



Photo Courtesy of LCWRT Member Paul Fridell

One of the serenest spots today on a Civil War Battlefield, Burnside Bridge built in 1836, was originally known as Lower Bridge or Rohrbach's Bridge.  Sept. 17, 1862, Antietam Creek was the site where Maj. General Ambrose Burnside’s Union Ninth Corps attempted to move forward across the creek, where the difficulties of the terrain and a small but dedicated Confederate force offset Burnside's numerical advantage. It took 3 hours to capture the crossing and another 2 hours to cross and begin the last attack on the Confederate right flank Confederate reinforcements arrived and counter attacked. 

Unions casualties were more than 500 Union troops had been killed or wounded.