2018 Seminar in the Woods – details

Dear Friends at home:

Here are the full details of what is (I think) our 13th annual seminar in the woods. I hope you can join us.

CCNMP Study Group 2018 Seminar in the Woods.

Mission Statement: The purpose of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park Study Group is to create a forum to bring students of the American Civil War together to study and explore those events in the fall of 1863 that led ultimately to the creation of the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park, as well as explore other nearby Civil War-related sites.

Tour Leaders:  Jim Ogden and Dave Powell

Date: Friday, March 9, and Saturday, March 10, 2018; By bus and car caravan.

All tours begin and end at the Visitor’s Center.

By Bus:

Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00: Battle of Resaca, May 14 – 15, 1864

On Friday we will finish our exploration of the Battle of Resaca, spending time on the area east of Camp Creek Valley (east of I-75) and the retreat from Resaca.

Friday evening, 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. – Q&A Panel with Jim Ogden, Dave Powell, and Lee White.

 Site: Constitution Hall, 201 Forrest Road, Fort Oglethorpe, GA

 Third annual open-forum question and answer period with Park Rangers Jim Ogden and Lee White.

 Car Caravan – Saturday Morning, 8:30 to Noon: Heg Attacks!

 On Saturday morning, we will explore the attack of Col. Hans Heg’s brigade of Federal Infantry, sent into the woods just north of Viniard Field in order to strike the flank of those Confederates then fighting in the area of Brock Field. Instead Heg’s four regiments ran headlong into Bushrod Johnson’s Division of Hood’s Corps. A long afternoon of deadly, see-saw fighting ensued.

Car Caravan – Saturday Afternoon, 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: Abandoned on Horseshoe Ridge.

 On Saturday afternoon, we will revisit one of the most famous stories of Chickamauga; the plight of the 21st Ohio, 22nd Michigan, and 89th Ohio. Essentially abandoned on Horseshoe Ridge, these three regiments ended up captured as two Confederate infantry brigades closed in on their position.

Costs:

Friday’s Tours will be via tour bus. Pre-registration and Fee required: $45, due by February 1, 2018.

 Sign-up after February 1 or on-site Fee (based on space available): $50 

 Saturday: no charge.

 Fees raised in excess of our costs (as well as any donations) will be used to support the causes of battlefield preservation, interpretation, and renovation.

 In 2017 the Study Group donated $500 to the Civil War Trust, helping to preserve battlefield land at Brown’s Ferry and Reed’s Bridge; and $500 to the Jewell Monument fund, run by the Friends of Chickamauga and Chattanooga, for maintenance and restoration needs.

 Send to (and make checks payable to):

David Powell

522 Cheyenne Drive

Lake in the Hills IL 60156

 Please also note that this fee is NON-REFUNDABLE after February 1st, 2018. Once we are committed to the bus, we will be charged the booking fee, no matter what.  

 

Please note that everyone is responsible for their own lodging, meals, snacks and incidentals.

 

Seminar Time: 2018

It is almost time to start public announcement of the 2018 CCNMP Seminar in the woods. A full announcement will follow, but just to let everyone know:

The dates for next year’s programs will be Friday March 9 and Saturday March 10, 2018.

We will again have a bus for Friday, and will be on foot (car caravan) for Saturday.

I am also happy to announce that the group raised considerable funds last year. $500 was donated to the Civil War Trust, to be spent on land acquisition in the Chattanooga Area, and we also gave $500 to the Jewel Monument Fund, which is a special fund administered by the Friends of the Park intended to aid monument restoration and repair.

 

 

“There is a day when I will get revenge from deserters.”

 

On September 8, 1863, Braxton Bragg abandoned the city of Chattanooga to Union forces without a battle. He hoped that this evacuation would be temporary, and that as soon as Rosecrans were defeated, his men would return.

I think this was a more dangerous and difficult decision than is usually realized. Despite an influx of new troops over the past few days, the Army of Tennessee’s morale was in a precarious state. Memphis and Nashville were already in Union hands, and had been since 1862. Knoxville was abandoned on September 1, with Bragg’s decision to pull Buckner south to join him instead of oppose Ambrose Burnside’s invading Federals coming from Kentucky.

And now Chattanooga, the last of Tennessee’s significant cities, would be given up as well.

Capt. Julius Gash commanded company D of the 6th North Carolina Cavalry, a part of Buckner’s command. His men were from Western North Carolina, and thus not overly committed to the Confederate cause in any case; abandoning East Tennessee hit them hard.

On September 5 – three days before Chattanooga was ordered evacuated – Gash wrote a letter home, expressing both his frustration and the perilous, fragile state of his regiment’s morale.

I quote parts of it below:

Charleston Tenn,

Sept 5th 1863

“Dear Col.”

“There are a good many troops at this place moving about but I have no idea if they intend fighting at this point. The infantry is all moving below [Chattanooga]. There will be a big two-horse fight somewhere in the country (but I know not when it will come off) upon which depends the fate of Tennessee and in fact has something to do with the fate of the Confederacy. I am strong in the faith that we are destined to be victorious in the pending battle. 

The officers of our command played the Devil generally while they were at the [Cumberland] Gap. Myself among the rest. We were a little fearful we could be gobbled up at the Gap & sent all our trunks to Knoxville for safekeeping and now the Yanks have possession & as a matter of course they are all ‘gone-up’ for ninety.

My company papers, receipts, muster-rolls and all gave up. I don’t care a D[am]n. My company has about gone up too! All deserted or at home without leave. Twenty-five men of our Regt started home about a week ago, but were nearly all apprehended! Two of my company among them. Gen. Buckner says he intends to shoot every man of them, and I do hope to God he will. 

Beard’s battalion and ours have been consolidated and formed the 66th N. C, Regt. [6th NC Cavalry] Both battalions can make about two good companies. There are now from both battalions 35 men in arrest who Buckner says he is going to have shot. 

Since the big stampede two of my men have deserted. Dick Osteen who had just returned from home, and the last man I would thought of deserting; and John C. Edney, who was a liut [Lieutenant] in Balums’ Co[mpany]. You know him very well, I guess. Dick was very much alarmed at Loudon. He told some of the boys that day if another Cannon ever got a chance at him it would be smart and sure enough that night he ‘took up his bed’ and skedaddled. 

I have learned during this war that there is no confidence to be placed in white men. I’ll swear men have deserted my company who I had the most implicit confidence in and men too who have been for near twelve months good soldiers as I thought was in the Confederate Army. I wish I could express the contempt I naturally cherish for a deserter, and men who will at this particular time desert. I do candidly think they ought to be shot. I think it is nothing more than what they justly merits. 

Why! Confound a man who is void enough of principal to desert his country in so perilous a time as now. Should all things work together for good and I live to see this difficulty adjusted. There is a day when I’ll get revenge from deserters, mark it. You are probably tired of this subject and so am I, for when I think of deserters I get so mad it bothers me to keep from saying Cuss words. 

Truly Yours,

Jule.” 

To me, Captain Gash’s letter illustrates the precarious morale precipice the Army of Tennessee skirted in early September. Yes, Gash’s company was probably not composed of ardent secessionists to begin with, but clearly they were losing even lukewarm enthusiam for the war.

If Bragg had suffered a defeat at Chickamauga, would his army have come unraveled? Arguably not, since the Army of Tennessee did rebound after Chattanooga – but what if they had a Chattanooga wihout the tonic of Chickamauga just two months before?