VOLUME XX               SEPTEMBER 16, 2003                NO.  9

S E P T E M B E R    R O U N D    T A B L E    M E E T I N G
  VISITORS & GUESTS WELCOME
      * * * Note Special Meeting Location * * * 

DATE:   TUESDAY,  SEPTEMBER 16, 2003             TIME:  7:00 PM

TOPIC: "Re-enforcement from the East:
       Longstreet's Trip to Chickamauga and a
       Georgia Soldier Who Experienced It"

SPEAKER:  DR. KEITH BOHANNON, STATE UNIVERSITY OF WEST 
          GEORGIA, CARROLLTON, GEORGIA

PLACE:  Old Stone Church, Ringgold, Georgia
    U. S. 41 & Ga. 2 South, really east, of Ringgold, Georgia
Directions-From Chattanooga, go south on I-75 (or U.S.41) to the Ringgold
area. You can either exit I-75 at Exit 350 or 348 and go into and through
downtown Ringgold or you can go on down I-75 to Exit 345. If you choose to go
through downtown Ringgold, take U.S. 41 South past the court house and the 
Western & Atlantic Railroad depot and the Ringgold Gap Atlanta Campaign
Wayside Park and follow U. S. 41 (which is also U.S. 76 and Ga. 2 at this
point) for about three (3) miles. Along the way you will be crossing over the 
ground of the Battle of Ringgold, November 27, 1863, past the intersection
with Cherokee Valley Road (at which intersection, around the springs that now
form the pond at the intersection stood the Cherokee Springs Resort that was a
Confederate hospital in '62 & '63 and at which Bragg and his wife soaked their
bones in July and August of '63), past the intersection with Catoosa Station
Road (the namesake of which is one of the landmarks for our talk this 
evening), and about a mile later, at the intersection where Ga. 2 turns off to
the left, you'll see the Old Stone Church on the left. It is literally a
sandstone church building. Parking is on the left just before the building.
If you stay on I-75 to Exit 345, the Ringgold-Tunnel Hill exit, get off at
that exit, turn left or north onto U.S. 41, and go north a little more than a
mile to the intersection with Ga. 2. Old Stone Church is there at the 
intersection, straight ahead of you and then on your right. Parking is just
beyond the building on the right. It's not hard to find.
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SEPTEMBER MEETING
     It is perhaps the most famous railroad troop movement of the war. James
Longstreet's First Corps veterans of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia
are loaded onto rail cars in Central Virginia and then are shipped south
through Richmond and Petersburg, across North Carolina and South Carolina, into
Eastern Georgia to Atlanta and then northward nearly to Ringgold, some of
them arriving in time to help win a victory at Chickamauga. It is quite a
feat, particularly given the deteriorating state of the Confederacy's rail
network. It's more than 900 miles by rail over several routes and many rail
lines. The move itself is a whole chapter in the Chickamauga story.
     Our talk this evening will look at that great adventure-the decision to
attempt it, the experience along the way, the difficulties encountered, the
ovation the soldiers met, the numbers who arrived in time. Accounts from
soldiers themselves, particularly one Canadian-Georgian of "Rock" Benning's
"Empire State of the South" Brigade, will illustrate what the men themselves
observed and recorded. It's what some 6,000 of Longstreet's men experienced 
in the days and hours before being committed to battle in the valley of the
"River of Death." And, our talk will occur just hundreds of yards from where
those soldiers' rail journey ended and in one of the most important landmarks
for the disembarkation. It will be an interesting and enlightening evening on
a date which 140 years earlier saw some of Longstreet's graybacks unloading and
bivouacking in the fields to the south of the meeting place, the Old Stone
Church, south, really east, of Ringgold, Georgia.
     Our speaker this evening, Dr. Keith Bohannon, will be familiar to many
Round Table members. He has spoken in the past on such topics as the Battle
of Ringgold and Wheeler's Army of Tennessee cavalry in 1863. In fact, he was
a member of the Round Table for a number of years in the mid to late '90s. A
native of Smyrna, Georgia, Keith holds Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees
from the University of Georgia and a doctorate in History from Pennsylvania
State University. His dissertation was on Northeast Georgia in the Civil War.
As a youth, he was a volunteer at Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield Park and,
while in college, worked summers and on contract at Fredericksburg and
Spotsylvania National Military Park and Chickamauga and Chattanooga National
Military Park. More recently, he was a lecturer at Penn State and is
presently an Assistant Professor of History at the State University of West
Georgia in Carrollton, Georgia. Keith has a number of works including A
Georgian with "old Stonewall" in Virginia: The Letters of Ujanirtus Allen,
Company F, 21st Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry (co-edited with Randall
Allen, LSU Press, 1988), "'They Had Determined to Root Us Out:' Dual Memoirs
by a Unionist Couple in Blue Ridge Georgia," in John C. Inscoe and Robert C.
Kenzer, eds., Enemies of the Country: New Perspectives on Unionists in the
Civil War South (UGA Press, 2001), "'Dirty, Ragged, and ill-provided for':
Confederate Logistical Problems in the 1862 Maryland Campaign," in Gary W.
Gallagher, ed., The Antietam Campaign (UNC Press, 1999), and "'One Solid
unbroken roar of thunder:' Union and Confederate Artillery at the battle of
Malvern Hill," in Gary Gallagher, ed., The 1862 Richmond Campaign: The
Peninsula and the Seven Days (UNC Press, 2000).
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SPEAKER'S FUND SUPPORT OF THE MONTH
      There are three awards again this month in support of the Speaker's 
Fund. The first is a copy of one of our speaker's books, A Georgian with "Old
Stonewall" in Virginia: The Letters of Ujanirtus Allen, Company F, 21st
Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry (co-edited with Randall Allen). The
General John C. Breckinridge entitled Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier,
Symbol. The third item is a new book, Shadow of the Sentinel: One Man's Quest
to Find the Hidden Treasure of the Confederacy. All three of the items were 
donated to the Speaker's Fund by Round Table members and to them go our 
thanks. Proceeds from the Speaker's Fund go to help pay the travel expenses of 
our out of town speakers. Your generous support of the Speaker's Fund helps 
us bring in good folks from greater distances.
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140th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA
      Events at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park to
commemorate the 140th Anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga begin September
13. A schedule of those events was included in last month's Canister. 
Hopefully, you've still got that copy. If not, look for a version of it in
the Chattanooga Times Free Press or view the online version at the National
Miliary Park's website, www.nps.gov/chch.
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DUES AND OFFICERS
      Round Table Dues Year 2003-2004 begins with October. Over the next 
couple of months, either at the meetings or through the mail, please pay your
dues for the coming year. I'll start purging the rolls of those who
have not paid by the first of the year.
      Also, it's that time of year again. Next month, at the October meeting, 
we'll nominate the slate of officers for the coming year.
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New website features Civil War-era letters of John T. Wilder
August 20, 2003
      The Special Collections department of Lupton Library has created a site
for its collection of John T. Wilder letters, 
http://www.lib.utc.edu/manuscripts/mss001/Wilder.html. This collection 
contains Civil War-era correspondence of Union General
John T. Wilder, who was instrumental in the Battle of Chickamauga, and who
remained in Chattanooga after the war becoming one of the city's leading
citizens and businessmen. The site includes a biography of General Wilder,
pictures of him and his family, as well as the full text of two letters and 
his 1899 address at the dedication of the battlefield at Chickamauga.
If you have questions about the John T. Wilder Collection, please contact
Steven Cox, Special Collections Librarian, at 423-425-2186.
        --from University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Lupton Library website,
                http://www.lib.utc.edu.
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FUTURE ROUND TABLE MEETINGS
October 21, 2003-Round Table Vice President Ansley Moses, Jr., 
"The Other Part of Wauhatchie: The Fight at Smith's Hill"
November 18, 2003 - 
December 16, 2003 - Dr. John D. Fowler, Kennesaw State University, 
"Mountaineers in Gray on Missionary Ridge: East Tennessee's 19th 
Tennessee Fights On Its Home Soil."
February 17, 2004 - Mel Young, "Dr. Block: Union Surgeon to Chattanooga 
Businessman"
July 20, 2004 - "The Battle of LaFayette," Field Trip and Off-site Meeting, 
Walker County Historical Society's Marsh-Warthen House, LaFayette, Georgia; 
we'll arrange a car-pool convoy for this special trip to learn about one 
of the smaller local battles from 140 years ago; more details later.
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UP-COMING LOCAL CIVIL WAR EVENTS OF NOTE
October 30-November 1, 2003 - "11th Annual Symposium on the 19th Century Press, 
the Civil War, and Free Expression" sponsored by the University of Tennessee 
at Chattanooga's Department of Communications, more details later.