On Sunday, November 9th at 3 P.M., the Franklin Civil War Round Table will present Robert D. Jenkins, an expert on the Army of Tennessee and the Atlanta campaigns, who will speak on the “Attack of the Confederate Right.” This will be the 75th presentation of the Round Table commemorating the attack across the Eastern Flank for this month of the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Franklin.

Confederate General William Loring’s Division on the right Confederate flank marched into the fray along the Lewisburg Pike. Loring’s men attacked across ground almost lost to development and saved by preservationists in 2005. The 110 acres makes up the plain between the Carnton Plantation and Lewisburg Pike and was once a golf course. Ten years later it is now known as the Eastern Flank Battlefield. The battlefield park is now fully interpreted with markers and walking paths and is a critical component of the reclamation of the Battle of Franklin story.

Robert Jenkins is an attorney practicing in Dalton, Georgia. He graduated from Georgia Southern University with a B.B.A. in Business Management and received his Juris Doctor degree from Mercer University. In 2013 his book, The Battle of Peach Tree Creek, was published by Mercer University Press, and is a study of the fighting in what are today the Atlanta suburbs. He recently completed his second book, To the Gates of Atlanta, expected to be released in 2015 by Mercer University Press.

Jenkins has done extensive study and research on the Battle of Franklin, especially the attack by the right Confederate flank along the Lewisburg Pike. He was a pioneer in the 1980’s and 90’s in discussing the importance of the attacks in the area where his ancestors fought in the 31st Mississippi Infantry Regiment.