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.