Historical Insights

We will examine the events of a very tense five days at the start of 1864, as General Croxton cautiously watches the alarming Confederate movements at the Shoals, Federal high command scramble to make sense of the developments, and local people find themselves caught up in the events in surprising ways.

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We will examine the details of Hood's movements from October 29 to November 1, 1864, culminating in the Confederates establishing a foothold at Florence, and the at times awkward Federal response. We will hear from surprisingly detailed and insightful first-person sources to these movements who witnessed it all.

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We will follow the frustrated and often inscrutable events that placed General John Bell Hood at Decatur, Alabama in the last week of October 1864.

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We will examine the tense time between the end of the pursuit of Forrest and the movement of General Hood out of Georgia toward the Shoals. We'll see how reaction, contingency, uncertainty and strategy all coalesced to lay the groundwork for the Shoals to find itself centerstage in the drama to come

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We will follow Forrest from Elk River to his incredibly daring crossing of the Tennessee at Florence, as he continues his destructive path throughout Middle Tennessee - with wide reaching and unintended consequences.

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We will explore the swift and stunning movement of General Forrest north of the Tennessee River late in September 1864, as the surprised and skeletal Federal garrisons scramble to meet the threat, with disastrous results

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We will learn the fate of Atlanta and follow General Wheeler's retreat out of Middle Tennessee and across the Tennessee River at the Shoals. We'll see how the Federals were mired in misinformation, surrounded by disparate rebel groups everywhere they looked, and how local people were impacted by these events.

*correction: At minute mark 17:49 I stated incorrectly that Rowett's regiment was the 9th Illinois. In fact it was the 7th Illinois.

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We will follow action in Northeast Mississippi - the largest engagement within 100 miles of the Shoals in the summer of 1864; see how the Union cavalry around Decatur didn't rule the roost unopposed; and visit action at Atlanta, as fateful strategic choices are brewing to bring the Shoals back to the center stage of the action in the climactic days to the war in the west.

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We will see how North Alabama played into the Atlanta Campaign, as General Sherman is within sight of capturing the city, despite critical losses. We'll see a massive shakeup in the Confederate command. We'll visit a skirmish at Courtland where we encounter some stunning experiences of enslavement. And we'll set the stage for a famous raid close to home as the Atlanta Campaign reaches its climax as the fateful Summer of 1864 begins to fade to fall.

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We will discuss dramatic events in the Atlanta campaign in June 1864 which will set into motion fateful consequences for North Alabama before the year's end

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