Thursday, March 23, 2017

[354] MTSU historians to bring Tullahoma Campaign to life March 25 in Bell Buckle


MURFREESBORO — Two members of the MTSU community will lend their expertise to a daylong examination of one of the Civil War’s most heralded strategic maneuvers.

The Tullahoma Campaign Civil War Symposium is slated for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 25, in the Bell Buckle Banquet Hall, located at 29 Railroad Square in Bell Buckle, Tennessee.

Among the speakers will be Vince Armstrong, an adjunct history professor at MTSU, and Shirley Farris Jones, a Civil War historian and retired MTSU employee.

The Tullahoma Campaign was a Union endeavor which resulted in the removal of the Confederate Army from Middle Tennessee from June 24 to July 3, 1863. Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans maneuvered his Union troops around the Rebel forces of Gen. Braxton Bragg in order to cut them off from supply reinforcements.

Rebel units made their stand at Shelbyville and Bell Buckle while the Union forces camped at Hoover’s Gap between Manchester and Murfreesboro. Bragg and his soldiers retreated first to Tullahoma, then to Decherd and Cowan, and finally to Chattanooga.

Armstrong helped develop maps for a book about the Tullahoma Campaign published by Tennessee’s Backroads Heritage. He has written several articles about the Tullahoma Campaign.

Jones has been active with the Rutherford County Historical Society, the Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities, Friends of Stones River National Battlefield and the Martha Ready Morgan Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She is the author of six books and the direct descendant of two Confederate great-grandfathers.

Other speakers include Nashville-Davidson County Historian Carole Bucy and historian and author Thomas Cartwright. The moderator will be historian and documentarian David Currey.

Topics to be discussed include “The Tullahoma Campaign and its Significance,” “Migration of Troops from Stones River to Chickamauga,” “Martha Ready Morgan: From Wife to Widow in 630 Days” and “Women and Spies in the Civil War.”

The Tennessee Department of Tourist Development and Tennessee’s Backroads Heritage, a nonprofit organization, are the sponsors of the symposium. The registration fee is $95, which includes breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack and registration packet.


To make a reservation or for more information, call 615-613-5627 or send an email to tnbackroads@bellsouth.net.

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