Battle Lines 666th Meeting Carol Willey, Editor Pro-tem
October Meeting Sherman’s Logistics: The Atlanta Reservations are required Campaign, Four Months in 1864
PLEASE MAKE YOUR DINNER RESERVATION IN THE AMOUNT Of Historian Greg Biggs will present a program detailing the $39 PER PERSON ONLINE AT strategy and logistics of General William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign for October’s meeting. When Sherman www.atlantacwrt.org set his sights on Atlanta, he prepared to supply his army Scroll down to the left to pay online in a manner that surpassed every other Civil War Or Mail to the Following Address: general. Rebuilding railroads and confiscating
Tim Whalen: P.O Box 2355 locomotives and cars to haul supplies, Sherman set a daily goal for shipments to his forward base in Griffin, GA: 30224 Chattanooga. Ruthless in making sure that only supplies TO REACH TIM NO LATER THAN got on the cars, Sherman also guarded the line of rails THURSDAY BEFORE THE that ran back to Louisville, Kentucky from Confederate MEETING. raiders. Building on a system begun by General William Date: Tuesday, October 8 S. Rosecrans, Sherman's engineers built forts and Time: Cocktails 5:30 p.m. blockhouses and prepared pre-fabricated trestles for replacing those brought down by Confederates. His Dinner 6:45 p.m. preparations were masterful and thorough, but not Place: Capital City Club- without flaws. Greg’s talk will examine the nuts and bolts Downtown; 7 John of Sherman’s logistics and analyze his errors. Sherman’s Portman Blvd. supply line performed as he expected and Atlanta was Price: $39 per person captured, thus setting the stage for two more campaigns before the war ended in April 1865. Program: Greg Biggs
Sherman’s Logistics: The Atlanta Greg is president of the Clarksville (Tennessee) Civil War Campaign, Four Months in 1864 Round Table and program chair of the Nashville CWRT. Menu for October Meeting He has written for Blue & Gray magazine, Civil War Regiments Journal, North-South Trader, the Citizen’s Local Greens Companion and many other publications. A battlefield Roasted Pork Loin tour leader, he is researching first person accounts of the Tullahoma campaign and assembling a unit history of the Sauteed Apples 83rd Illinois Infantry. Greg lectures and consults Fingerling Potatoes extensively. He specializes in Military flags, the Civil War Pineapple Carrot Cake Western Theatre, and Revolutionary War campaigns.
www.atlantacwrt.org Battle Lines 666th Meeting Carol Willey, Editor Pro-tem
Sherman On Newspaper Correspondents
We all appreciated Dr. Steven Woodworth’s comments and presentation on the evolution and conduct of the Wilderness Campaign last month. Gregg Biggs will be talking on Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign and the logistics involved this month – I found an interesting (though likely unrelated) Sherman quote in the ACWRT Battle Lines for February, 1999 (William R. Scaife, President), from Sherman’s Memoirs, Vol. II, pg. 408:
“Newspaper correspondents with an army, as a rule, are mischievous. They are the world’s gossips, pick up and retail William T. Sherman, 1865 the camp scandal, and gradually drift to the headquarters of (Matthew Brady, National Archives) some general who finds it easier to make reputation at home A Very Special Raffle Item than with his own corps or division… Moreover, they are always bound to see facts colored by the partisan or political After our October Speaker character of their own patrons, and thus bring army officers presentation, our special into the political controversies of the day….” raffle item for the evening will be a 1977 reprint of Wonder if anyone spilled the beans to the press about The Confederate Soldier Sherman’s plans during that campaign? in the Civil War, originally John published in 1897. It is a large coffee table sized- book with many period In November: Wayne Motts Remembers photographs, prints and Lewis Armistead and Pickett’s Charge Battle Maps. The book is in excellent condition and From an esteemed military family, Lewis Armistead served the was in the library of Army in the West and the Mexican war before leaving to join Beverly M. Dubose, Jr. the Confederacy. General Armistead’s brigade led Pickett’s until 2018, then offered as a giveaway this year by Charge and achieved the ‘high-water mark of the “Bo” DuBose. Confederacy,” the farthest point reached by the Confederacy at Gettysburg, on July 3, 1863. Armisted was mortally KSU Bus Tour wounded and died after the battle. Wayne E. Motts, author of Trust in God and Fear Nothing: Lewis A. Armistead, CSA and KSU will offer an all day bus co-author with James Hessler of Pickett’s Charge at tour of Civl War Museums in Gettysburg: A Guide to the Most Famous Attack in American Columbus on October 12. History, will speak in October. Chief Executive officer of the For details see: http://bit.ly/ National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, columbusbustour or call Wayne has been a guide at Gettysburg for 27 years. (470) 578-2551.
www.atlantacwrt.org Battle Lines 666th Meeting Carol Willey, Editor Pro-tem
Longstreet Society Marks 25 Years
Gainesville’s Longstreet Society will celebrate its 25 year anniversary from Friday through Sunday, October 18-20 with an annual seminar, an all day Chickamauga Battlefield Tour, and tours of Longstreet’s famous Piedmont Hotel, which was partially restored and is maintained by the society. On Friday volunteers will lead tours of the hotel and offer a chicken dinner that evening. (Longstreet’s hotel is credited with creating chicken fried in batter or Southern Fried Chicken and generating the poultry industry in north Georgia). The