They are going to have going on related to high bridge. I think that is pretty much it in terms of general information. I want to go ahead and introduce the first speaker for the morning. Bert dunkerly is a historian, an awardwinning author. He has a degree in history from st. Vincent college and a masters in preservation. He has worked at nine different Historic Sites most recently am currently at the Richmond National battlefield park. He has written two books and i think we have at least one of them in the forsale bookstore his most recent one, the most famous bridal struggle i grabbed the wrong one. What is the most recent one . To the bitter end, which deals with the surrenders in north carolina. His talk today will be on the forgotten surrenders. Since i did my dissertation on florida, i hope you might mention florida once or twice because it was one of the florida regiments that was one of the last surrendered groups, week in june. Late in june. Bert dunkerly. [applause] bert go
For nearly a century. Fort benning was established on macon road in columbus, georgia, on approximately 85 acres of land in october of 19 18th 1918. On that day the war came to a close and there was talk of closing fort denning. Many officers who had served in the American Expeditionary forces to france went before congress to testify that had our soldiers had better training they would not have suffer the casualties that they did in just 210 days of actual combat, so it was determined by congress that we would keep fort benning on a smaller scale and luckily for us, it survived. But first, go on board the css jackson, one of only four surviving ironclads dating back to the civil war. We are in the National Civil war naval museum on the banks of the chattahoochee river. The purpose of the naval museum is to tell the stories of the navys during the civil war. We are the only facility that focuses entirely on that particular story. We are in a unique place, right here inside the museum a
I will give an abbreviated version of the bios we have in the programs. Tracy is a native of appomattox. He has worked for the National Park service. He has been at Petersburg National battlefield since 1997. He is the author of one of the volumes and the howard, virginia regimental history series. He is also passed president of the lynchburg civil war roundtable. And the appomattox county historical society. His talk today will be on the fall of petersburg. Please welcome Tracy Chernault. [applause] Tracy Chernault good evening. Im a big baseball guy. When he asked me to speak as the leadoff man, that was a first for me. Most of you can tell by my size, i never hit leadoff because i require somebody speeding. Being the leadoff man is something new for me. I was surprised when pat pointed out that the magazine contains his article, because you get to this article, you have to read through my article. Which i think should have been the end of the magazine. [laughter] please pick up one
The battle of columbus took place in 1865. James wilson is a Union Cavalry officer. Their job was to attack the states of alabama and georgia. Their goal was to destroy important targets like columbus because of industrial output. They wanted to disrupt supply lines and communications, anything to further along the collapse of the confederacy. An ironclad like the jackson would be used at a port city. If there was an approaching army, the vessel can move up and down the waterway and fire its big guns at the opposing forces. This is what confederate ironclads did. She is right at completion in april 1865. There is no crew yet. The navy has her on the list as the next ship to the commission to. The war is winding down and the confederacy is collapsing. During the battle of columbus, she said of the navy yard. The navy guys never could come aboard and get her steam up here in there was not enough men available to do that. Its a nice showpiece. The next morning, wilsons men came into the n
Them in the forsale bookstore his most recent one, the most famous bridal struggle i grabbed the wrong one. What is the most recent one . To the bitter end, which deals with the surrenders in north carolina. His talk today will be on the forgotten surrenders. Since i did my dissertation on florida, i hope you might mention florida once or twice because it was one of the florida regiments that was one of the last surrendered groups late in june. Bert dunkerly. [applause] bert good morning. I want to thank the organizers for having me. I really appreciate the invitation, it is great to be here with so many people interested in the topic. What i would like to do was talk about all of the surrenders, not so much on appomattox, i think you have covered that in the last few days. I want to compare the surrenders and talk about how different they are because each unfolded in different ways. And each surrender happens independently and they all have a fascinating story. I want to talk about ho