CWRT to focus on final stage of Gettysburg

The Bella Vista Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce the next program will be titled “The Final Stage of the Gettysburg Campaign, From Falling Waters to Culpeper Court House, July 14-31, 1863.” It will be presented by nationally recognized author and Texas Military Forces Museum Director Jeffery Hunt.

The program is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, May 2 at the Bella Vista Historical Museum, 1885 Bella Vista Way. Admission is free but donations are accepted to cover the expenses of the guest speakers.

Contrary to popular belief, the Gettysburg Campaign did not end at the banks of the Potomac on July 14, but deep in central Virginia two weeks later along the line of the Rappahannock. Once Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia slipped across the swollen Potomac back to Virginia, the Lincoln administration pressed George Meade to cross quickly in pursuit — and he did.

Rather than follow in Lee’s wake, however, Meade moved south on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains hoping for a chance to capture the strategic gaps penetrating the high-wooded terrain and trap Lee in the northern reaches of the Shenandoah Valley where the Federals might spark the potentially decisive victory that had eluded Union armies north of the Potomac.

The two weeks that followed was a grand chess match between Meade and Lee, both of whom were operating without firm intelligence on their enemy’s movements and maneuvering with armies mauled by Gettysburg. Lee had to get his army through the mountains back to central Virginia in order to shield Richmond. Meade needed to stop him.

The ensuing two weeks of hard marching, cavalry combats, heavy skirmishing, and set-piece fighting threatened to escalate into a major engagement with the potential to end the war in the Eastern Theater. Throughout, two things remained clear: Union soldiers from private to general continued to fear the lethality of Lee’s army and the Gettysburg Campaign was far from over.

Jeffrey William Hunt is the director of the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin, Tex., which is the official museum of the Texas National Guard, and an adjunct professor of history at Austin Community College, where he has taught since 1988. Prior to taking the post at the Texas Military Forces Museum in 2007, he was the Curator of Collections and Director of the Living History Program at the Admiral Nimitz National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Tex., for 11 years. He holds a bachelor’s degree in government and a master’s degree in history, both from the University of Texas at Austin.

In 2013, Hunt was appointed an honorary Admiral in the Texas Navy by Governor Rick Perry, in recognition of his efforts to tell the story of the Texas Navy during the period of the Texas Revolution and Republic.

In 2018, his “Meade and Lee After Gettysburg” received the Gettysburg Civil War Round Table’s Distinguished Book Award. In 2022, he was awarded the Edward Cole Bearss Award for Outstanding Civil War Scholarship.

Hunt’s next book in his post-Gettysburg series, “Meade and Lee at Mine Run,” is forthcoming from Savas & Beatie in 2024. He is a veteran reenactor with 35 years of experience conducting, participating in and hosting a wide variety of events ranging from the War of 1812 through the Vietnam War.

The purpose of the Bella Vista Civil War Round Table is to educate and stimulate interest in the period of United States history known as the “Civil War” and to promote historical, educational, and literary study and activities related to the Civil War, including events and circumstances related to the cause and effect of the war.

For further information email dkp55@ymail.com or call the Bella Vista Historical Museum at 479-855-2335.