Clarksville Civil War Roundtable Announces April 2016 Program

April 20th, 2016 – Our 145th meeting. We continue our eleventh year! The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, April 20th, 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.

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.

Our Speaker and Topic - “Work For Giants: The Battle of Tupelo” (based on the recent book)

During the summer of 1864 a Union column, commanded by Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson Smith, set out from Tennessee with a goal that had proven impossible in all prior attempts: to find and defeat the cavalry under the command of Confederate major general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest's cavalry was the greatest threat to the long supply line feeding Sherman’s armies as they advanced on Atlanta.

Smith marched at the head of his “gorillas”, veteran soldiers who were fresh from the Red River Campaign. Aside from diverting Confederate attention away from Sherman, Smith's orders were to destroy Southern railroads and confront Forrest in Mississippi. Just weeks earlier, a similar Union expedition had met with disaster at the Battle of Brice's Crossroads, perhaps the greatest victory of Forrest's military career. Joined by reinforcements led by Lt. Gen. Stephen Dill Lee, Forrest and his men were confident and their morale had never been higher. For two weeks, however, Smith outmarched, outfought, and outmaneuvered the team of Lee and Forrest. In three days of bitter fighting, culminating in the battle at Harrisburg, the Confederates suffered a staggering defeat. Forrest’s corps was devastated. He and his men would recover but would never regain their earlier strength, nor would they ever again prove a serious threat to veteran Union infantry.

Work for Giants focuses on the details of this overlooked campaign and the efforts, post-battle and postwar, to minimize the outcome and consequences of an important Union victory. The book draws heavily from previously untapped diaries, letters and journals, and eyewitness accounts, bringing to life the oppressive heat, cruel depredations, and brutal combat the soldiers encountered, and the stoic strength they used to endure them.

“Parson’s work on Harrisburg will probably stand for many years as the definitive account of the events of that hot July in Mississippi in 1864.” – Greg Biggs, Civil War News book review, January 2015

This month’s speaker is Tom Parson. Thomas (Tom) Parson is a native of Sylmar, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He enlisted in the US Navy immediately out of high school for a four year hitch which turned out lasting for twenty years. While on leave in May of 1980 he visited his first Civil War battlefield: Shiloh. Tom served on four ships and retired in 1998 as a Chief Petty Officer. Not long after retiring he signed on with the National Park Service and has spent the last seventeen years with Shiloh National Military Park. He spent his first five years with the park maintaining the National Cemetery, the mass Confederate burial trenches and other sites across the battlefield. Tom is a certified Historic Preservation mason and has performed repairs and maintenance on structures throughout the National Parks system. In 2004 Ranger Parson was assigned to the new Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center in Corinth, Mississippi. His research focuses on military activities in North Mississippi and West Tennessee. Tom lives in Corinth with Nita, his wife of 35 years.

Tom has authored these books - Work for Giants: The Campaign and Battle of Tupelo/Harrisburg. Kent State University Press, 2014 and Bear Flag and Bay State: The Californians of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment. McFarland Publishers, 2001. His forthcoming books are - Forrest Victorious: The Battle of Brice’s Crossroads and The Civil War Journal of Chaplain Elijah Edwards, 7th Minnesota Veteran Volunteers.

Tom has also written these articles for Blue & Gray Magazine - Hell on the Hatchie: The Fight at Davis Bridge, Tennessee. Dec. 2007; Stopping Grant in Mississippi: The Holly Springs Raid. 2010 and Final Stand in Mississippi: Tupelo, the Campaign and Battle 1864. July, 2014.

Lastly, Tom has authored a series of newspaper articles of interest - Daily Corinthian (Corinth, MS). 115 articles on Corinth during the Civil War. Many of these articles are available on-line through the website of Shiloh National Military Park under the heading “Parson’s Ponderings.” http://www.nps.gov/shil/parsons-ponderings.htm

We hope you join us for this terrific program.