Hello,

March 16th, 2016 – Our 144th meeting. We continue our eleventh year!

The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, March 16th, 2016 at the Bone & Joint Center, 980 Professional Park Drive, right across the street from Gateway Hospital. This is just off Dunlop Lane and Holiday Drive and only a few minutes east of Governor’s Square mall. The meeting begins at 7:00 pm and is always open to the public. Members please bring a friend or two – new recruits are always welcomed.
Sorry to be so late with the newsletter folks. I goofed on the date of this month’s meeting. Let’s have a great turnout!!!

Our Speaker and Topic - “Bite The Bullet: Myths And Realities Of Civil War Medicine”

“Bite the Bullet” is an overview of the techniques used by the military physicians s of the 19th century military to treat battlefield wounds and disease during the four year conflict of the 1860’s. Original Civil War medical instruments will be shown to illustrate the medical and surgical treatments used by the Union and Confederate military, the results of those treatments, and how they contrast with the techniques of the modern military medical system.

Dr. Anthony Hodges attended the University of Alabama, graduated from UT Chattanooga and the University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences in Memphis with a D.D.S. (Doctor of Dental Surgery) degree in 1981. He is married to a dental school classmate, Dr. Jill Prichard Hodges, an orthodontist, and they have three grown children. They reside on Elder Mountain, just outside of Chattanooga. Anthony recently retired from dentistry after 35 years of practice.

He became interested in early American and Civil War history as a young child due to oral family history passed down to him by elderly relatives in North Alabama. He began to collect Civil War artifacts as a young boy and items from his collection have been displayed in national parks and museums across the South. He served as a National Park Service living history interpreter for over thirty years.

Anthony began to study Civil War medicine in dental school and has lectured on the topic for nearly forty years. He assisted Dr. James I. “Bud” Robertson of Virginia Tech and Broadfoot Publishing in the re-printing of the U.S. Army’s official twelve volume medical account of the Civil War, The Medical and Surgical History of the Civil War. He has written numerous Civil War historical articles for the Chattanooga Times-Free Press during the war’s 150th anniversary.

Anthony is currently serving his second term as President of the Friends of Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park and also serves as Vice President of the board of the Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association in Nashville. Additionally he is Vice President of the East Tennessee Historical Society and Museum of East Tennessee History in Knoxville; and serves on the Advisory Board of the Medal of Honor Museum in Chattanooga. He is a past Commander of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, as well as the Order of the Southern Cross.