About the Atlanta Campaign than he does. Hes been a proud civil war the fourth he was in grade. He earned his undergraduate emory, hisistory at masters degree at the andersity of North Carolina emory. At davis drew on his experience this morning when he spoke to 450 High Schoolers ever effectively. Hes taken it upon himself to attend virtually all of the eight lectures weve had thus far in this series. And hes been so very conscientious in communicating what he wanted to say to you tonight and to our students earlier today. Im not sure i can do justice to for the civil war in campaign. A his pieces have appeared in a popularf scholarly and publications, including the civil war times illustrated and the georgia historical quarterly. He was the book review editor magazine forgray 11 years. His 2001 book, atlanta will highly respected. And his most recent book, what the excuse me what the yankees did to us, shermans bombardment and wrecking of atlanta, has been described as one expert as
I cant remember when i first saw the picture, and i certainly did not know where cold harbor was at the time. Im sure i thought it was a port town somewhere in virginia. I may not remember in which book i first saw the photograph, but i know that immediately and lastingly linked the words cold harbor and death in my mind. In subsequent years, i came to read more about the events of the spring of 1864 that culminated at cold harbor, that deadly slog from the rapid ann to the james that saw the u. S. Suffer 50,000 casualties, in the confederacy, another 30,000plus, the bloodiest six weeks of the war. I learned of the thousands who fell in the Early Morning on june 3rd. And i do know that there are differing schools of thought about what that number was. I learned that ulysses s. Grant would harbor terrible regrets about his decisions at cold harbor to the very end of his days. And i learned that even in a war in which the military and the public had become accustomed to horribly long cas
Stymied. Lee is any a powerful position and grant cant break through. What does he do . Maneuvers. He pulled the army of the potomac ought of the wilderness and goes to the spotseslvania courthouse and then lee has to come out from the wilderness and fight him on opened ground. This is a tactical maneuver aimed at pulling lee from his strong entrenchmentes. The army of the potomac shifts south, a drama take point in the war because up to this point, whatever Union Generals had been trounced in the battle as bad as lee had defeated grant and in the wilderness they always retreated but grant moved south to the court house and lee gets awe finger of his army in front of grant and blocks him and theres brutal fighting in places with names like the mule shoe and the bloody age that will goes on for over a week, will be 10 days and then finally grant realizes he cant break through there so grant maneuvers again. He pulls the union army out from spots vain yeah courthouse and send the finger
And how to use them for historical research. We are pleased to have john emond here with us today. The title of the event is civil war voices. A bit more about the know your records program, we also do researcher newsletters, if you provide your email address i will send you that newsletter automatically. It we do a genealogy fair, and wheels of have a Genealogy Program taken place at the National Archives building in washington dc. That happened several times a month. So, with that, i will turn give the biography for mr. Emond. He retired in 2011 at the 30 years in government. Most of it in contract Technology Transfer and project management at nasa. He is a member of the Maritime Committee with the Maryland Historical society. He is a collector of historical artifacts from the American Revolution and civil war. Including several civil war soldiers letters which he will refer to in this presentation. A program that will be approximately one hour long. We will take questions and answer
If you are planning to go to the park this afternoon, if you hold off taking one of these, they are in the back. We will get you some. Its on park row. My talk is referred to as black thursday, the battle for Sailors Creek. One of the Union Generals who was involved in the battle, he wrote in his book about the fighting 5 of the intelligent people of the united states, north or south ever heard of the battle of Sailors Creek. They dont know anything of its magnitude or importance. This is not strange. It was fought in virginia. This was three days before the surrender under general robert e lee. Events were happening so rapidly that no note was made of the battle. In the next few minutes, you will be part of that part of our nation. Just some point before we talk about the battle, there are three separate engagements referred to as the battles of Sailors Creek. As you enter the museum, it refers to it as battles. I mentioned the spelling difference. There were two branches, most of the