Lynchburg
Civil War Roundtable
The
Kirkley Inn @ Candler's Mountain Road
Social
Hour @ 6:00 pm
Dinner
@ 7:00 pm
Program @ 8:00
pm
2009-2010
Roundtable Dates & Speakers
Tuesday
Sept 15, 2009 Ed
Bearss: Chief Historian
Emeritus-
National
Park Service
(Note
this meeting is off-cycle to accommodate Ed's busy schedule).
Edwin
Cole Bearss was born in Billings
, Montana
on June 26, 1923 .
He grew up on his grandfather's ranch near Hardin
, Montana
within a bicycle ride of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.
cattle for Civil War He attended a one-room school at Sarpy
, Montana
until he went to St. Johns Military
Academy
in Delafield ,
Wisconsin in
1937.
Immediately
following his graduation from Hardin High
School in 1941 he joined the United States
Marine Corps. During World War II he served with the 3 rd Marine Raider
Battalion and 1 st Marine Division in the invasion of Guadalcanal
and New Britain
. He was badly wounded by machine-gun fire
on January 2, 1944
and spent 26 months in various hospitals.
He
studied at Georgetown University
and received a BS degree in Foreign Service
in 1949. He wrote his thesis on Pat Cleburne and in 1955 received
his MA from Indiana University
.
Mr.
Bearss's career in the National Park Service began in 1955 at Vicksburg
, Mississippi
where he was the park historian. He located
the Widow Blakely , a cannon used on the Vicksburg
River
defense and which had long been displayed at West
Point as Whistling Dick . Other
research led him and two friends to the long lost resting place of
the Union ironclad gunboat Cairo .
He
is the author of The Vicksburg Campaign trilogy, Steele's
Retreat From Camden & The Battle of Jenkins Ferry , Rebel
Victory at Vicksburg , Decision in Mississippi ,
Sinking of an Ironclad , and numerous other books and publications
including more than a hundred historical articles in scholarly journals.
He
is the founder of the Mississippi Civil War Roundtable (1956), which
later consolidated with the Jackson Civil War Roundtable. He received
the Harry S. Truman Award in 1961 for Meritorious Service in the field
of Civil War history. He was chosen Man of the Year at Vicksburg
in 1963. In 1964, he was chosen
to become a member of the Company of Military Historians and was voted
a Fellow in that organization, and received the Nevins-Freeman Award
from the Chicago Civil War Roundtable (1980) for his work in Civil
War history. In 1983, he received the Department of the Interior's
Distinguished Service Award which was followed by a commendation from
the Secretary of the Army in 1985. He served as an ex-officio member
of the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission.
Mr.
Bearss retired on September 30, 1995
after 40 years with the National Park Service
and
almost 50 years of federal service. He continues to lead Battlefield
tours for the Smithsonian Institution, National Geographic Society,
National Trust for Historic Preservation, Civil War Roundtables, and
other military history organizations. Most recently he served as a
historical consultant for the movie Gods and Generals.
Wed.
Oct. 14, 2009
Dr. William Still - Professor
Emeritus-
East
Carolina
University
Topic
“Ironclads of the Confederacy”
Still
joined ECU in 1968 as associate professor of history and later became
full professor. In 1982, he was the founding director of ECU's Program
in Maritime History and Underwater Archaeology. Still retired in 1994.
He
earned his Ph.D. and M.A. at the University
of Alabama ,
and served in the U.S. Navy from 1954 to 1956.
Still
was the Secretary of the Navy Research Chair in Naval History at the
Naval Historical
Center
from 1989 to 1990, and served on the advisory boards of the National
Maritime Alliance and the U.S. Commission on Military History.
He
served in leadership roles for the North American Society for Oceanic
History, the Society of Civil War Historians; and on editorial advisory
boards for “The American Neptune,” the “Civil War Times Illustrated,”
and the Secretary of the Navy's Advisory Subcommittee on Naval History.
A
noted scholar and historian, Still has published numerous books and
articles on Civil War and naval history. Among the awards he has received
are the K. Jack Bauer Award from the North American Society for Oceanic
History, the Jefferson Davis Award from the Confederate
Museum ,
the President Harry Truman Award from the Kansas City Civil War Roundtable
and the North Carolina Literary and History Association's Christopher
Crittenden Memorial Award.
Recently
Dr. Still received the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize in
Naval History or his book, “Crisis at Sea: The United States Navy
in European Waters in World War I.”
Awarded
annually, the prize honors an outstanding work on American naval history,
particularly those publications that enlighten readers on the role
that maritime history plays in American history.
Wed.
Nov. 11, 2009 Larry Babbits PhD, Director- Underwater Archaeology
program, East
Carolina
University
.
Topic
“The CSS 
Peedee”
Lawrence
E. Babits ,
George Washington Distinguished Professor
Director
of Maritime Studies
Ph.D.,
Brown University
, BA and MA, University of Maryland-College
Park
Larry
Babits has extensive experience in military, maritime and plantation
archaeology. He is a specialist in maritime material culture and military
history. His publications include numerous site reports including:
Fort Dobbs
on the Carolina Frontier, Archaeological
Survey of the Western Shore
of the Pungo
River
from Wades
Point
to Woodstock Point (1995), and
Archaeological Investigations at Causton's Bluff, Chatham
County , Georgia
. He is the author of chapters
and articles in Documentary Archaeology
in the New World ,
Archaeology , Military Collector
and Historian , and the Maryland Historical
Magazine . He was the McCann-Taggert
Lecturer for the American Institute of Archaeology in 1995, and was
named George Washington Distinguished Professor of History by the
NC Society of the Cincinnati
in 2003, and a Fellow of the Company of Military Historians in 2006.
Babits teaches classes in method and theory of nautical archaeology,
material culture studies, small boat documentation, archaeological
field schools, living history, and various military topics. His
most recent book, Long, Obstinate and Bloody, deals with
the 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse. It was co-written with Josh
Howard and published by the University
of North
Carolina Press in 2009.
Wed. Dec. 09, 2009 Christmas party at Sandusky .
Wed.
Jan 13, 2010 Waite
Rawls: Executive
Director-
Museum
of the Confederacy.
Topic:
“Flags in the Museum of the Confederacy”
Waite
became the Executive Director of the Museum of the Confederacy in
January 2004 and was elected President and CEO in November 2006. Taking
that job was a switch of careers, as he decided to make his former
avocation into his current vocation.
Formerly,
he spent thirty years as an investment banker in New
York and Chicago
, with responsibilities in the capital markets
areas, including being the Vice Chairman of Continental Bank. Additionally,
he has been an Adjunct Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology
and a Visiting Professor at the Darden School (University of Virginia),
concentrating on the derivatives and capital markets.
Mr.
Rawls is a Trustee of the Camp Foundation
, a member of Virginia
's Robert E. Lee Commission, a former Trustee
of the Civil War Preservation Trust and of the Jamestown-Yorktown
Foundation, a former Trustee and President of the Alumni Association
of the Darden School
, and a former member of the Board of Visitors
of the Virginia Military Institute.
A
native of Franklin ,
Virginia , he
joined the Franklin Civil War Roundtable at age 9. He has a BA from
the Virginia Military Institute and his MBA and JD from the University
of Virginia .
Wed.
Feb. 10, 2010
Jeff Johnston – Historian- National Monitor Marine Sanctuary
Topic
“Diving on the USS Monitor”
Jeff
Johnston is a Program Specialist who has worked with the Monitor
National Marine Sanctuary since 1995. Jeff serves as the
Sanctuary historian and has over 20 years experience specializing
in the fields of maritime and Civil War history. Jeff served
as one of the archaeological team leaders for NOAA on Monitor
during the recovery years and continues to work with private
research groups to fulfill NOAA's efforts to preserve the USS Monitor
.
Wed.
Mar. 10, 2010 Keith Gibson: Director- Virginia Military Institute
museum
Topic
“Moses Ezekiel: Civil War Soldier, Renowned Sculptor”
Colonel
Gibson is Executive Director of Museum Programs and Architectural
Historian for the Virginia Military Institute. As Director of Museum
Programs, Colonel Gibson is responsible for the operation and development
of the VMI Museum
in Lexington
, Virginia
and the New Market
Battlefield State
Historical Park
in New Market, Virginia.
Growing
up near Richmond ,
Virginia , on
land hotly contested during the Civil War kindled Keith Gibson's interest
in history at an early age. Colonel Gibson received his bachelor's
degree in Civil Engineering from the VMI in 1977. After a brief tour
of duty as a Naval Officer, Colonel Gibson returned to VMI as Curator
of Exhibits for the VMI Museum
. He prepared for a museum career with graduate
work in Early American History at James
Madison University
and Museum Studies with George
Washington University
and an internship at the Museum at Strawbery
Banke, Portsmouth ,
New Hampshire ,
in 1983. He was the founding director of the McBride
Museum
at the New Mexico Military Institute in 1984. In 1986, Colonel Gibson
was selected as one of eighteen museum professionals in the United
States to participate in the Seminar for
Historical Administrators, an intense summer program for museum professionals
held at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.
Colonel
Gibson has worked as a consultant on several historical documentary
films, made for television films, and feature films including God
and Generals (2001/2) , History's Lost and Found (2000),
Field of Lost Shoes (2000/1—winner of two PBS Emmys), Wicked
Spring (2000), The Civil War Journal (1993-Present),
The Johnson Whittaker Story (1993), Sommersby (1992),
Gettysburg (1992), The Smithsonian's Civil War (1990-present)
and Dress Gray (1985). He appears frequently as a spoke person
for historic preservation on radio and Public Broadcasting television
programs.
In
addition, he has written numerous book reviews and articles on the
Civil War era and VMI. Colonel Gibson is author of The VMI Spirit:
A Portrait of VMI and contributing author to Crowd of Honorable
Youths (1989), Forces of the British Empire (1992), and
The Virginia Biography of History (1991). He wrote a new introduction
and biographical sketch for the reprinting of Frances Smith's History
of Virginia Military Institute (1989) and the Corps Forward
. His latest book, Moses Ezekiel: Civil War Soldier; Renowned
Sculptor, was released in June.
An
advocate of battlefield and civil war site preservation, Colonel Gibson
has appeared on public television and public radio programs in support
of historic preservation. He was instrumental in the development of
the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District
and Commission Act passed by Congress in 1996.
Colonel
Gibson is active in several professional organizations including the
American Association of Museums and the Virginia Association of Museums.
Colonel Gibson is a member of the board of The Historic Lexington
Foundation and The Center for the Study of the Civil War. He has served
as vice president of the Rockbridge Civil War Round Table, as a member
of the board of the Virginia Association of Museums, The Association
for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA/RAM) and two terms
as president of the Rockbridge Historical Society.
Wed.
April 14, 2010 Robert Hicks- Author “Widow of the South”
Topic-
TBA
In
1894 Carrie McGavock is an old woman who has only her former slave
to keep her company…and the almost 1,500 soldiers buried in her backyard.
Years before, rather than let someone plow over the field where these
young men had been buried, Carrie dug them up and reburied them in
her own personal cemetery. Now, as she walks the rows of the dead,
an old soldier appears. It is the man she met on the day of the battle
that changed everything. The man who came to her house as a wounded
soldier and left with her heart. He asks if the cemetery has room
for one more.
In
an extraordinary debut novel, based on a remarkable true story, Robert
Hicks draws an unforgettable, panoramic portrait of a woman who, through
love and loss, found a cause. Known throughout the country as "the
Widow of the South," Carrie McGavock gave her heart first to
a stranger, then to a tract of hallowed ground-and became a symbol
of a nation's soul.
The
novel flashes back thirty years to the afternoon of the Battle of
Franklin, five of the bloodiest hours of the Civil War. There were
9,200 casualties that fateful day. Carrie's home -- the Carnton plantation
-- was taken over by the Confederate army and turned into a hospital;
four generals lay dead on her back porch; the pile of amputated limbs
rose as tall as the smoke house. And when a wounded soldier named
Zachariah Cashwell arrived and awakened feelings she had thought long
dead, Carrie found herself inexplicably drawn to him despite the boundaries
of class and decorum. The story that ensues between Carrie and Cashwell
is just as unforgettable as the battle from which it is drawn.
The
Widow of the South
is a brilliant novel that captures the end of an era, the vast madness
of war, and the courage of a remarkable woman to claim life from the
grasp of death itself.
Robert
Hicks, the author of THE WIDOW OF THE SOUTH, was born and raised in
South Florida .
In 1974 he moved to Williamson
County , Tennessee
; in 1979 he moved
to 'Labor in Vain,' a late-eighteenth-century log cabin, near Leiper's
Fork, Tennessee .
Working both as a music publisher and in artist management in both
country and rock music, Hick's interests remain broad and varied.
A partner in the B. B. King's Blues clubs in Nashville, Memphis and
Los Angeles, Hicks serves as 'Curator of Vibe' of the corporation.
Sat.
May 7, 2010 Saturday picnic &
Civil War Fair (show & tell) at Historic Sandusky.
