The next meeting of the Middle Tennessee CWRT will be Tuesday October 16, 2007. The meeting will begin at 7 PM in Bradley Academy.

Greg Mertz, Supervisory Historian at Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania National Military Park will be our featured speaker. He will present “I’ll be Damned if I’ll Cooperate”-- Gouverneur K. Warren at Wilderness and Spotsylvania.

Federal Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren entered the spring campaign of 1864 with a high reputation. Although he would not be widely recognized as the savior of Gettysburg’s Little Round Top until after his death, Warren’s decisions regarding that hill while serving as the chief engineer of the Army of the Potomac were indeed appreciated by the army commander, George G. Meade. Ironically the whole army was aware of another of Warren’s decisions that is not very well known of today that occurred five months after Gettysburg during the Mine Run Campaign. Warren had been ordered to attack a Confederate position that he deemed to be so strong that he decided not to carry out the orders without first advising Meade of his objections. The attack was canceled and the men in the ranks hailed Warren as a man who would rather jeopardize his career than send men into a fruitless slaughter.

By the time the army departed winter camps and marched into the region in Virginia known as the Wilderness on May 4, 1864, Warren commanded the Fifth Corps. Just a few days into the campaign, General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant, accompanying the Army of the Potomac, confided with some of his staff officers that he had been “inclined to place him [Warren] in command of the Army of the Potomac in case Meade had been killed.”

But Grant’s assessment of Warren had changed dramatically in just over a week. By May 12, 1864, on the day of the most horrific fighting around Spotsylvania Court House, Grant was prepared to replace Warren. Grant instructed Meade to have the army chief of staff take Warren’s place if his troops were not found to be engaged. Chief of staff Andrew A. Humphreys concluded that Warren was doing the best that he could, and allowed Warren to remain in command. Before war’s end, however, Warren would be dismissed at Five Forks. The charges were petty, but Warren’s removal was really a culmination of the seeds that were sown in the Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House.

“I’ll be Damned if I’ll Cooperate” is the title of the program, taken from a tirade of Warren on the opening day at Spotsylvania. We will assess Warren’s decisions and the way he reacted to the orders from his superiors during this crucial week of his career.

The Middle Tennessee Civil War Round Table meets every third Tuesday of the month at Bradley Academy, located on Academy Street in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Membership applications are available at each meeting. Membership costs $10 per year for individuals and $15 for families. All meetings are open to the public regardless of membership status. Each meeting will include time for interested parties to share stories and memorabilia from the Civil War era with the membership.

For more information, visit our web site at http://www.mtcwrt.org or contact Jim Lewis at 615-890-1926 (before 8 PM) or by e-mail at mtcwrt@comcast.net.