SHOW LESSIf asked to name the six lieutenant generals who served as infantry corps commanders under Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia, Jackson, Longstreet, A. P. Hill, Ewell, and Early, would probably be followed by John Brown Gordon. Yet, the sixth was Richard Heron Anderso--in terms of seniority, if not ability. Despite a mediocre performance as division commander at Gettysburg, Lee called upon Anderson to take charge of the 1st Corps when Longstreet was wounded in the Wilderness. Following the Overland Campaign he reinforced Early in the Shenandoah Valley. When Longstreet returned to duty, Lee gave Anderson the 4th Corps, Beauregard’s old command. He managed to escape capture at Little Sailor’s Creek only to be relieved two days later. It was a precursor to his postwar career. Lawrence Lee Hewitt, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, received his B.A. (1974) from the University of Kentucky and his M.A. (1977) Ph.D. (1984) from Louisiana State University. He was the manager of the Port Hudson (1978-1982) and Camp Moore (1982-1986) Historic Sites in Louisiana and taught at Southeastern Louisiana University (1985-1996). He was a tenured full professor when he resigned to marry a native of Chicago, where he currently resides. The 2013 recipient of the Nevins-Freeman Award, he is a past president of the Baton Rouge Civil War Round Table. His publications include Port Hudson, C o n f e d e r a t e Bastion on the Mississippi (1987), two volumes of Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi (2013, 2015), and, To Succeed or Perish: The Diaries of Sergeant Edmund Trent Eggleston, 1st Mississippi Light Artillery Regiment, CSA (2015), which won the 2016 General Basil W. Duke Literary Award. A third volume of Confederate Generals in the TransMississippi will be out in 2018. He recently finished a history of Port Hudson Civil War photographs and is writing biographies of Richard Heron Anderson and David Glasgow Farragut.

The Battle of Ezra Church was fought on July 28, 1864, near Atlanta, the third in a series of unsuccessful attacks by General John Bell Hood’s Confederate Army of Tennessee on General William T. Sherman’s Union army. After the July 22nd Battle of Atlanta, Sherman decided to cut off Atlanta’s railroad supply lines, thus forcing the Confederates to withdraw without a direct assault. To accomplish this goal, Sherman transferred his easternmost army, under Major General Oliver O. Howard, north and west around the rest of the Union lines to the south western side of Atlanta where the railroad entered the city. Anticipating Sherman’s maneuver, Hood moved his troops out to oppose the Union army. Hood planned to intercept them and then make a surprise flank attack.   The armies met on the afternoon of July 28 west of Atlanta, near Ezra Church. Hood’s plans for a flank attack quickly collapsed. His disjointed attacks hit Howard’s troops head on. The Confederate army suffered heavy losses assaulting the Union army’s improvised breastwork of logs and rails. The rebels were defeated, although they managed to stop Howard from reaching the railroad line. The discouraged Confederates blamed Hood for the defeat, lamenting that they “had just enough soldiers left for another killing.” One Confederate general complained that his men “had been butchered” by the high command.   On January 12, 2018, Bruce Allardice will discuss this battle, and in particular critique John Bell Hood’s management (or lack thereof) of the battle. A professor of history at South Suburban College, he has given numerous lectures and presentations for Civil War Round Tables, museums, and civic organizations, including several to this round table. Among his publications is “‘It was Perfect Murder’: Stephen D. Lee at Ezra Church,” an essay in Confederate Generals in the Western Theater (vol. 3), which inspired this presentation.   Professor Allardice received the CWRT of Chicago’s Nevins-Freeman Award for distinguished service in Civil War Scholarship and the CWRT movement. He is a former president of both the Chicago and Northern Illinois CWRTs. An avid sports historian, he heads the Civil War Baseball subcommittee for the Society of American Baseball Research.

Date: December 10, 2017

Speaker: David Dixon

Topic: The Lost Gettysburg Address

- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting

Date: November 10, 2017

Speaker: Tom Clemens

Topic: Special Order 191 and the Maryland Campaign

- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting

Date: October 10, 2017

Speaker: David A Powell

Topic: Chickamauga: Barren Victory

- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting

Date: September 10, 2017

Speaker: Ed Bonekemper

Topic: False Remembrance of the Civil War: The Myth of the Lost Cause

- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting

Date: June 10, 2017

Speaker: Don Sender

Topic: The Custer Debacle

- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting

Date: April 10, 2017

Speaker: Diane Monroe Smith

Topic: Command Conflict in the Overland Campaign

- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting

Date: March 10, 2017

Speaker: Paul Kahan

Topic: Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s First Secretary of War

- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting

Date: February 10, 2017

Speaker: Bob O’Neill

Topic: Cavalry During the Peninsula Campaign

- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting