Hello,
June 17th, 2013 – Our 51st Meeting
The next meeting of the Nashville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Monday, June 17th, 2013, in the visitor’s center of Ft. Negley Park, a unit of Metro Parks, Nashville, TN. This is located off I-65 just south of downtown between 4th Avenue South and 8th Avenue South on Edgehill Avenue/Chestnut Avenue. Take Exit 81, Wedgewood Avenue, off I-65 and follow the signs to the Science Museum. 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: “The Secession Of Tennessee And Its Legacy Of Emancipation”
Tennessee's decision to secede from the Union masked the deep divisions within the state. In February, 1861, after several states had seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, the Tennessee General Assembly called for a statewide referendum. The results of this vote were that Tennessee would not secede. After the attack of Fort Sumter on April 12,1861 and President Lincoln's call for troops, the mood of the state changed. The state legislature passed an ordinance of secession in May and sent that to a vote of the people of the state. On June 8, less than 2 months after the war began, Tennessee held a second referendum and then voted overwhelmingly to leave the Union.
Although many Unionists voted for secession in the June vote, they wanted to hold to hold the state on a somewhat moderate course. After the Union occupation of Nashville and then much of West Tennessee in early 1862, these former Tennessee Unionists tried to cooperate with the Union authorities in the state. When President Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September of that year, these Unionists organized to try to influence him to exclude Tennessee from the proclamation. On January 1, 1863, when the Proclamation became effective, Tennessee was excluded. Our speaker, Dr. Carole Bucy, will speak about the road to secession, Governor Isham Harris’ influence on that decision and the unique role of Tennessee in the Emancipation Proclamation.
Dr. Carole Bucy, a regular speaker on Tennessee history, is a longtime advocate for local and state history. Nashville Mayor Karl Dean appointed her as the Davidson County Historian. She is the author of Tennessee Through Time: the Early Years and Tennessee Through Time: the Later Years,two textbooks currently used by Metro Schools in 4th and 5th grades. After graduating with a B. A. in history from Baylor University and earning a M. A. in history from George Peabody College, Carole began her teaching career as a high school teacher in Atlanta, Georgia. After returning to Nashville, she worked for several years as a public historian, working on teacher workshops across Tennessee. She began informally giving tours to school groups and then joined forces with several others to found the Nashville City Cemetery Association. She began to realize what a pivotal role Nashville played in the Civil War and quickly added the Civil War to her list of “speaking topics” as she frequently spoke to community groups around middle Tennessee.
Carole returned to full-time teaching in 1995 as an instructor at Volunteer State Community College where she is now a Professor of History while earning a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 2002. She is author of History Carved in Stone: The Nashville City Cemetery, Women Helping Women: the History of the Nashville YWCA, and several scholarly articles including one to be published later this year. She is also the general editor of "Nashville's Civil War Stories: Common People in an Uncommon War," the new brochure for tourists published by the Metro Historical Commission in cooperation with 12 Civil War sites in Davidson County.
We hope you will join us for this fine program.
Greg Biggs