Announcing Our 536th Meeting
Saturday, March 9 

Earning His Spurs: General John B. Hood in 1864

Presented by Stephen Davis 

Stephen Davis of Atlanta has been a Civil War buff since the 4th grade. He grew up in Atlanta, attending Margaret Mitchell Elementary and Northside High. At Emory University, he studied under the renowned Civil War historian Bell Wiley. After a Master’s degree in American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he taught high school for a few years, then earned his Ph.D. at Emory, where he concentrated on the theme of the Civil War in Southern literature. He’s also taught at Oglethorpe University. 

Steve is the author of a new history of the Atlanta Campaign, published by Savas Beatie as two paperbacks:  A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw to the Chattahoochee, May 5-July 18, 1864 and  All the Fighting They Want: The Atlanta Campaign from Peachtree Creek to the City’s Surrender, July 18-September 2, 1864. His book, What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman’s Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta, was published by Mercer University Press in 2012. In a review in Civil War News, Ted Savas calls Steve’s work “by far the most well-researched, thorough, and detailed account ever written about the ‘wrecking’ of Atlanta.” He is also author of Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston and the Heavy Yankee Battalions (2001). He served as Book Review Editor for Blue & Gray Magazine from 1984 to 2005, and is the author of more than a hundred articles in such scholarly and popular publications as Civil War Times Illustrated and the Georgia Historical Quarterly. 

Now retired, Steve serves as Book Review Editor for Civil War News, the monthly national newspaper for buffs, for which he contributes a regular column, “Critic’s Corner.” Steve is also a popular speaker at Civil War Round Tables and historical societies around the country. He has spoken on “What the Yankees Did to Us” to the Round Tables of Buffalo, New York and Providence, Rhode Island (and got away with it!). He has given talks at the annual meeting of the American Civil War Round Table (UK) in London. His favorite event was a few years ago when he addressed President and Mrs. Carter and family on the role of Copenhill (the Carter Center) in the battle of Atlanta. 

Next year Mercer University Press will publish Steve’s next book, tentatively titled Flawed Image: A Study of John B. Hood’s Generalship in 1864.

American Civil War Battlefields 
Fort Sumter National Monument 
Charleston Harbor, South Carolina 

100-pounder Parrott rifles on their original carriages at Fort Sumter. 

Photo courtesy of LCWRT member Paul Fridell,

 text courtesy of LCWRT Member Holly Jenkins-Evans. 

Post Civil War, the U.S. Army Engineers leveled the damaged higher walls of the heavily battered Fort Sumter. When the gun casements were rebuilt, they housed 100 pound Parrott rifles. The Parrott guns were invented by Capt. Robert Parker Parrot who, after his military service, was the superintendent of the West Point Foundry. He patented the cast iron Parrot rifle with a wrought iron reinforcing breech band in 1861. 

Before the Civil War was over, and despite a reputation for shattering, both Union and Confederate forces were using the Parrott guns in a variety of sizes. These guns were made in sizes from 10 -pounders up to a 300-pounder. These 100-poumd Parrots were naval guns 138" in length and weighing 9727 pounds. Manned by a crew of 17, they fired either an 80 or 100-pound shell to a range of up to 6,900 yards for the 80-pound shell or 7810 yards with the 100-pound shell.

American Civil War Battlefields 
Fort Donelson, Tennessee
Lower Water Battery 

Photo and text courtesy of LCWRT Member Charlie Moore

This is a view of Fort Donelson’s lower water battery facing the Cumberland River as it flows northward to its junction with the Ohio River. This lower battery and the upper battery which lies a few hundred yards to the south were armed with heavy seacoast guns. Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, which lies 12 miles to the west on the Tennessee River, were built to defend the water approaches to Confederate supply bases in Clarksville and Nashville, Tennessee. 

Fort Henry had already fallen to the Union forces of Brig. General Grant and Naval Flag Officer Andrew Foote on February 6th ,1862. Because of its poor location and the flooding Tennessee River, Foote was able to literally float his ships right up to the fort and force it into submission. 

Fort Donelson was a different story. On February 14th, untested Confederate gunners were able to defeat Foote’s Federal ironclads and timber-clad gunboats. Using the same tactics he successfully used at Fort Henry, Foote brought his gunboats very close to the Confederate artillery hoping to shell them in to surrendering. His flotilla became an excellent target for the Confederate guns however, due to flooding, the Confederate guns’ higher elevation and the slow movement of his heavy gunboats. After he was defeated, it was up to General Grant and his army to take the fort by storm which they did on February 16. Foote, a veteran naval officer who was wounded in the exchange later commented that he had been in numerous fights before with ships and forts ‘but never was under so severe fire before.’

American Civil War Monuments 
The Battle of Nashville Peace Monument
Nashville, Tennessee 

Photos Courtesy of LCWRT Member Paul Fridell 

Text Courtesy of LCWRT Member Holly Jenkins-Evans 

Giuseppe Moretti was commissioned to create the Battle of Nashville monument, dedicated in 1927 on Armistice Day. The monument honors both Union and Confederate troops as well as World War I soldiers with a young man representing WW1 soldiers holding two horses symbolizing Union and Confederate forces, these joined by a banner "Unity". Due to interstate highway construction in 1980s, the monument was left isolated in a small plot after also being damaged during a 1974 tornado. The monument was restored and in 1999 was moved and rededicated at the Nashville Battlefield Park just north of the Confederate line on the first day of the battle.

Battle of Nashville Dec. 15-16, 1864
Army of Tennessee under John Bell Hood 
Combined Forces of Union Army under George Thomas 
After actions at Spring Hill where he failed to destroy John Schofield's Union forces, and then the disaster for the CSA that was the Battle of Franklin, Hood proceeded on to Nashville. There he faced the George Thomas's combined forces of some 55,000 men including John Schofield's XXIII Corps and Thomas J. Wood's IV Corps and was soundly defeated. 

Inscriptions from http://www.bonps.org/original/inscript.htm:

East Face (Main Face) BATTLE OF NASHVILLE 1864 

West Face: Erected A.D. 1926 By The Ladies Battlefield Memorial Association Aided By Contributions From Patriotic Citizens The State Of Tennessee And The County Of Davidson 

South Face: The Spirit Of Youth Holds In Check Contending Forces That Struggled Here At The Fierce Battle Of Nashville, Dec. 16th, 1864, Sealing Forever The Bond Of Union By The Blood Of Our Heroic Dead Of The World War 1917 - 1918. A Monument Like This, Standing On Such Memories, Having No Reference To Utilities, Becomes A Sentiment, A Poet, A Prophet, An Orator To Every Passerby.

North Face: "Oh, Valorous Gray, In The Grave Of Your Fate, Oh, Glorious Blue, In The Long Dead Years, You Were Sown In Sorrow And Harrowed In Hate, But Your Harvest Today Is A Nations Tears. For The Message You Left Through The Land Has Sped From The Lips Of God To The Heart Of Man: Let The Past Be Past : Let The Dead Be Dead. Now And Forever American!"