American Civil War Battlefields 

Battle of Wildcat Mountain 

Camp Wildcat 

Laurel County, KY

Photos and Text courtesy of  LCWRT Member Holly Jenkins-Evans

The Battle of Wildcat Mountain, also known as Camp Wildcat, was located outside London, Ky. The Laurel Home Guard Reservation was the site of CSA Gen. Felix Zollicoffer's camp.

Fought on October 21, 1861, this small battle was the first Union victory in Ky, effectively ending the Confederate incursion under Brig Gen. Felix Zollicoffer. Zollicoffer and his force of approximately 5400 men had entered the state and occupied the Cumberland Gap. The camp at Wildcat Mountain was established by Col. Theophilus T. Garrard and his small force of 975 men under orders by USA Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas in order to block the Wilderness Road and secure the river ford on the Rockcastle. After Garrard's request for reinforcements, Thomas ordered Brig. Gen. Albin Schoepf to reinforce the heavily outnumbered Garrard, the Union forces numbered approx. 7000. Schoepf and his troops arrived at Camp Wildcat on Oct 20. The nest day, the Union troops were able to repel the Confederate attacks. Zollicoffer and his troops retreated to Cumberland Ford by the 26th. 

If  Zollicoffer had been successful, the Confederates would have been able to occupy the important central area of Kentucky, along with its forage, horses and potential troops with a force of 5400 and few losses. With the loss at Wildcat Mountain, they would have to make a much costlier and ultimately unsuccessful attempt a year later in October of 1862. 

American Civil War Monuments
Memorial Arch 
6th and Washington St., Heritage Park
Junction City, KS

Photo and Text  by LCWRT Member Holly Jenkins-Evans

This impressive, 35 foot high Civil War Memorial Arch stands in Heritage Park in Junction City, Kansas. Not bad for a town with a population of 2684 in 1880. Planned and built by the veterans of the Union Army, as a tribute to the those who died during the American Civil War, the arch was dedicated on September 8, 1898. The arch is 23 feet wide with a white bronze soldier atop as well as two 8-inch mortars.

The following inscriptions are both on the arch itself and on replica plaques on a pedestal behind the arch, recently dedicated on April 9, 2019.

Left front of the arch:

In God We Trust 

In Memory Of

The Soldiers And Sailors Of

1861-1865

Who, Inspired By Patriotism

Freely Offered Their Lives;

For The Maintenance Of

An United Country

Right front of the arch:

1861-1865

Total Enlistment 

2,778,304 

Killed in Battle 

67,050 

Died of Wound Received in Action 

43,012 

Died from Other Causes 

240,458

Announcing Our 537th Meeting
Saturday, April 13

The Battle Never Fought: The Mine Run Campaign 

Presented by Chris Mackowski 

Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., is the editor-in-chief of Emerging Civil War and managing editor of the Emerging Civil War Series. He is a professor of journalism and mass communication at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, NY, and historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania battlefield in central Virginia. He has also worked as a historian for the National Park Service at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, where he gives tours at four major Civil War battlefields (Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania), as well as at the building where Stonewall Jackson died. Chris has authored or co-authored a dozen books on the Civil War, and his articles have appeared in all the major Civil War magazines. Among the books Chris has authored or co-authored are The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson: The Mortal Wounding of the Confederacy’s Greatest Icon-and the Birth of Its Greatest Legend, Fight Like the Devil: The First Day at Gettysburg July 1, 1863, and That Furious Struggle: Chancellorsville and the High Tide of the Confederacy, May 1-5, 1863. He was a 2014 finalist for the Army Historical Foundations' Distinguished Book Award for Chancellorsville's Forgotten Front: The Battles of Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church. Chris has had six of his plays produced and he serves on the national advisory board for the Civil War Chaplains Museum in Lynchburg, Virginia. His latest book is The Battle Never Fought: The Mine Run Campaign. 

The Battle Never Fought: The Mine Run Campaign

 The stakes for George Gordon Meade could not have been higher. After his stunning victory at Gettysburg in July of 1863, the Union commander spent the following months trying to bring the Army of Northern Virginia to battle once more and finish the job. The Confederate army, robbed of much of its offensive strength, nevertheless parried Meade’s moves time after time. Although the armies remained in constant contact during those long months of cavalry clashes, quick maneuvers, and sudden skirmishes, Lee continued to frustrate Meade’s efforts. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Meade’s political enemies launched an all-out assault against his reputation and generalship. Even the very credibility of his victory at Gettysburg came under assault. Pressure mounted for the army commander to score a decisive victory and prove himself once more. Smaller victories, like those at Bristoe Station and Rappahannock Station, did little to quell the growing clamor—particularly because out west, in Chattanooga, another Union general, Ulysses S. Grant, was once again reversing Federal misfortunes. Meade needed a comparable victory in the east. And so, on Thanksgiving Day, 1863, the Army of the Potomac rumbled into motion once more, intent on trying again to bring about the great battle that would end the war.

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!"