“The Siege of Chattanooga and Wheeler’s Raid” at March Round Table

On Sunday, March 10th at 3 P.M., the Franklin Civil War Round Table will present Dr. Phillip Kimmerly to speak on “The 1863 Siege of Chattanooga and Wheeler’s Raid.

In the fall of 1863, the Federal Army of the Cumberland was trapped in Chattanooga for five harrowing weeks, near starvation, and depending upon a single difficult road over mountainous terrain for survival. Dr. Kimmerly will tell the story of both men and animals suffering and struggling to move badly needed supplies to starving troops to the strategically critical city of Chattanooga. In severe environmental conditions and with the physical limitations of standard-issue quartermaster wagons going up and down rough and dangerous slopes, more than twelve thousand animals would die before the siege was broken and the famous Cracker Line established. During this siege, Confederate General Joe Wheeler’s Sequatchie Valley attack on a ten-mile long federal wagon train destroyed 50% of their supply wagons in one of the biggest captures of Union supplies during the war.
 
Kemmerly is a Professor Emeritus of Geology at Austin Peay State University where he taught for forty years. He is a licensed professional geologist and has served as a geological consultant in both the government and private sectors for over three decades. Since retiring in 2011, he has combined his interest in the Civil War and his scientific background to issues in Civil War military history.  He has published numerous Civil War articles with his latest coming out in the summer of 2019 dealing with how the Army of the Ohio marched past John Bell Hood’s army at Spring Hill. Dr. Kemmerly last spoke at the FCWRT in January 2017 on the topic of environmental conditions during the battle of Nashville.

The event is free to the public. The Franklin Civil War Round Table is an educational program of Franklin’s Charge, and meets each month at Carnton’s Fleming Center, 1345 Eastern Flank Circle. For more information, email fcwrt@yahoo.com, or visit https://www.franklinscharge.org/the-round-table.