Chattanooga Times Free Press - ChattanoogaNow
Civil War history panel, battlefield tour Saturday
A panel discussion and battlefield tour focusing on Gen. George H. Thomas, “The Rock of Chickamauga,” will be held Saturday, June 2, at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.
The one- hour panel begins in the battlefield Visitor Center’s theater at 11 a. m. An hour- long car caravan tour about the general will begin from the Visitor Center lobby at 1 p.m.
Thomas, a Virginia native, was a career U. S. Army off i cer prior to the Civil War. When war broke out in 1861, instead of donning Confederate gray, as many Virginians did, he remained clad in Union blue. Thomas was the 14th Army Corps’ commander at Chickamauga in 1863.
In the midst of confusion and panic at Chickamauga, he oversaw the Union Army’s last effort to hold the battlefield at Horseshoe Ridge and near the Kelly Farmstead, allowing the remainder of the army to retreat into Chattanooga, thus earning him the nickname “The Rock of Chickamauga.”
Panelists presenting t heir views about t he leadership of Thomas are three Civil War scholars. They are Dave Powell, author of “The Maps of Chickamauga” and other works about the battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga; Dr. Frank Varney, author of “General Grant and the Rewriting of History;” and Dr. Brian Steel Wills, author of “George Henry Thomas: As True as Steel.”
The authors will also conduct book signings inside the Eastern National Bookstore from 10 to 11 a. m. and throughout the afternoon Saturday.
For more information: 706-866-9241.