Good afternoon everyone. Youll find seats and we will get our panel going. Good morning. Welcome to the fifth annual mississippi book festival. Im Chris Goodman with the Mississippi Department of archives and history if youve not done so please silence your cell phones. This panel on the u. S. Civil war is sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council and Mississippi State University One of the book festivals Board Members from Mississippi State john mars luck is on the panel. As Francis Coleman here . Dean of libraries . Another strong supporter. As is stuart rockwell, director of Mississippi Humanities Council. I dont believe hes in the room but think them for their support and we are in the room today courtesy of forming walkmans walker. Our panelists are jaclyn dowd hall commercial be harold, john mars luck and bend when you can purchase copies of their books outdoors and you can find the times they will be signing in your brochure. We will hear from our panelists for about 40 mi
[inaudible background conversations] [inaudible speaking] the panel is titled American History, renegades and sponsored by the Mississippi Library commission. Tracy carr, with the library commission, was in the room for the very first organizational meeting of the festival we couldnt do this without the Mississippi Library commission or libraries from all over the state so thank you very much for your support. We are in the room today courtesy of foreman watkins law firm, our gratitude to them. Our panelists are tom craven, eric j dolman and Peter Houlihan. You can purchase copies of their books from vendors outside and you can find the times are authors will be signing in your program. We will hear from our panelists for about 40 minutes then open the floor to questions. Please come to the podium in the center of the room to ask your questions. Help me welcome our moderator for this panel, kitty blunt director of Mississippi Department of archives and history. [applause] thank you. Im
Sam hello, and thank you. You mentioned my odyssey. My wife and i moved to myrtle beach, south carolina, five days ago. And if you think it is bad when the Airlines Lose your luggage, we werent able to move into the so we arere buying living out of boxes and crates and things. It sounds strange to say i drove up from south carolina. Im used to driving down here. I have been looking forward to this for several reasons. Theis, when the theme of symposium is generals you love , i dont have to worry about what peoples expectations are. , ended a fan of John Bell Hood even though i am not as closely related as the name implies. I am a collateral descendent. I think i am a second cousin. Grandfather,s andrew hood, comes off a different branch, but i am a big ,an of general hood because like most people i am a big fan of an underdog. Fan ofm also a huge people who are not around to defend themselves, and they deserve a defense. I, for probably 20 years, have been researching general hood. And
Damian shields is an engaging young scholar. Hes an archaeologist by trade. Hes an historian by emotion and2y he gets the way you have to do those things. Lets not decide objects and places dont matter, only the words someone wrote on a piece of oh paper. It all matters. Its all evidence of how history unfolded and its impact on us today. Yesterday was a great pleasure of mean. I picked pupup mr. Clay and we went over to Stones River National battlefield and i managed not to lose him totally in that battlefield. We kbolt over to franklin just in time it was sort of dusk. The perfect time to study a man. All of this together means we dm have a unique opportunity to have a perspective and learn from a perspective that sometimes we dont take in here in tennessee. We do have civil war historians aplenty. Sometimes you can shake a tree and a bunch fall down the. We dont get that International Perspective so often. I think we are all just blessed l < and honored to have damien among us today
Screeria nigeria. The tenhour drive, frankly was definitely worth it. According to your program, what were supposed to do today is first offer some insights speak briefly on a portion of the campaign they believed to be particularly illuminating. Two things ill do real quickly, if i can, the first one deals with spring hill. Spring hill was the day before the battle of franklin and what it represented was a lost opportunity to attack some union troops either at spring hill itself or some who were in colombia and would come up to Franklin Pike that night. Essentially what happened is a profound mystery in many ways. Hood planned a flanking movement which was extremely successful. In fact there were federal troops still at columbia who were going to come up the pike that night. They failed to do two things. They could have launched an attack on the yankees who were in spring hill. They did not do that. There was a fight but it was not the larger fight that i think the generals had contem