(Directions to Caldwell Hall-Enter the McCallie School campus off of Dodds Avenue opposite the end of Bailey Avenue. Take the main drive into the campus and follow the signs for the Academic Quadrangle. There is a parking area there beside the Chapel and you will have passed Caldwell Hall on the right as you approach the parking area. Find a place and park. Caldwell Hall will be behind you as you park. Come in either the first or second floor doors and follow the signs to the Millis-Evans Room.)

In retrospect, even by the fall of 1863, this vision of the continuation of a Confederate Tennessee state government might seem unrealistic or even foolish, but, if you were a Tennessee Confederate in the spring of 1863, you had to believe, you had to act. And they did. In his talk this evening, "ELECTING CONFEDERATES IN TENNESSEE IN 1863," Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park Historian Jim Ogden will look at the August, 1863, Confederate elections in Tennessee, an election, which because of the presence of the Army of Tennessee itself, was in many ways, a state-wide election in or from Chattanooga and East Tennessee. Events of the next month and four months might now belie its futility, but a hope of a Confederate Tennessee were still alive when the polls opened on August 6, 1863. Come out and learn about this political part of Tennessee's and Chattanooga's and the Army of Tennessee's history that occurred even as the Campaign for Chattanooga was unfolding.

There are four items again this month for the Speaker's Fund. The first is a copy of The Boys: Who Went to War from Cumberland University, 1861-1865 edited by William C. Floyd and Paul Gibson (there is a connection to this month's talk......can you figure out what that connection is?). The rest of the items are in recognition of the up-coming 143rd anniversary of that battle with limited significance that occurred outside that small-central Pennsylvania college town. The second item is a copy of The Third Day at Gettysburg & Beyond, edited by Gary Gallagher (you could win this, go to the GHS seminar noted below, and get Gary to sign it), a collection of very fine essays about the third day of that battle with limited significance that occurred outside that small south-central Pennsylvania college town. I particularly like the reasoning of Dr. William G. Piston in "Cross Purposes: Longstreet, Lee and Confederate Attack Plans for July 3 at Gettysburg." Remember, what happened was not what was supposed to happen and if you want to criticize Longstreet for less than full obedience to Lee's orders, Dr. Piston shows it is the 3rd and not the 2nd where the greatest criticism can be heaped. The third item is a copy of the old National Park Service historical handbook on that battle with limited significance that occurred outside that small south-central Pennsylvania college town as well as a copy of a pretty good tour guide to that battlefield with some pretty good maps and an issue of Civil War Times Illustrated full of articles on that battle with limited significance that occurred outside that small south-central Pennsylvania college town. The final item is a small framed version of a Mort Kunstler print of J. E. B. Stuart reporting in to Lee, late, for that battle with limited significance that occurred outside that small south-central Pennsylvania college town. The last three of the four items this month were donated to the Round Table to support the Speaker's Fund. To those donors go our thanks. Proceeds from the Speaker's Fund go toward bringing speakers in from outside the area. Your support of the Speaker's Fund is appreciated.

We also discussed the related issue of potential distribution of the Canister be email. Not everyone of course has email and not everyone wants to get the Canister by email, so for now, we're going to try an experiment. A number of folks who do do email provided email addresses and I'm going to try sending them a copy electronically too. If we can make that work without too much trouble and those folks like receiving it that way, then we might expand the service. It was felt by those present that if the email Canister works, than the cost of the website would be off-set by the savings in postage from having to mail fewer Canisters. For those without email, don't fear; no one present was talking about going to email as a sole means of distribution. We won't get that high tech as least for now.

Our proud native of Stonewall Jackson's home town, Dr. Steve Bartlett, reminds us that today, the 20th of June, is West Virginia Day. It was on this day in 1863, just as William S. Rosecrans (who had initially made a name for himself in the war in Western Virginia) was ready to kick off HIS Campaign for Chattanooga, that West Virginia became a state, the 35th, increasing by one the number of Union states and decreasing by fifty counties the area of the Confederacy.

The War Between the States does create West Virginia as a state, but the war itself only allowed for the accomplishment of what many in the Western Districts of the Old Dominion had been striving for for a long time. Delegates from the counties of Western Virginia had voted against secession in the Virginia Secession Convention in April, 1861, and voters throughout the region opposed secession individually. Beginning in June, 1861, pro-Union, pro-statehood men began to meet in Wheeling to take steps to make Western Virginia West Virginia. The effort led to the creation of a "restored" or Union government of Virginia which authorized a referendum on Western Virginia statehood in October, 1861, and while few voters voted, theses and other steps were enough of a show of process to allow the creation of a state constitution, which after gradual emancipation was added to eventually free the four percent of Western Virginians who were enslaved, was accepted by Congress. West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863. With this date of statehood, West Virginia becomes the 29th of the states which would provide troops to the two armies struggling for Chattanooga - the 4th West Virginia (previously Virginia) of Joseph A. J. Lightburn's Brigade of Morgan L. Smith's Division of the 15th Corps, a part of Sherman's force and one of the regiments positioned on Billy Goat Hill as a part of the Tunnel Hill/Sherman vs. Cleburne/Cleburne defeats Sherman portion of the Battle of Missionary Ridge. Some with strong pro-Confederate sentiments, then and now, have maintained that West Virginia's path to statehood was less than legal and proper, but, to the victors go the spoils......(if any accept that Western Virginia isn't a state, then the number of states which provide troops to the two armies in the struggle for Chattanooga is only 28, but, then the number of states which provided troops to both sides in the campaign goes from four to five. Virginia would be the fifth; can you name the other four?)

Trivia---another name was considered for the state to be formed in Western Virginia. That proposed name was ___________?

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September 19, 2006 - Since it will be the 143rd anniversary of the fighting on September 19 at Chickamauga, we'll have an evening walking tour meeting on the Chickamauga Battlefield; bring a flashlight.
October 17, 2006 - Russell K. Brown, author of To The Manner Born: The Life of William H. T. Walker, Augusta's "Pet Company:" The Washington Light Artillery of August, Georgia, and "Our Connection With Savannah:" History of the FIrst Battalion Georgia Sharpshooters, 1862-1865, presenting a subject from the latter book, "Sharpshooters in the Valley of the River of Death: A Georgia Sharpshooter Battalion at Chickamauga."
November 21, 2006 - Sam Davis Elliott, "The Southern End of the Battle of Missionary Ridge"
December 19, 2006 - To be announced.

November 9-11, 2006--14th 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.

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