On Sunday, March 8th at 3 P.M., the Franklin Civil War Round Table will host historian Joseph Ricci, who will present, “Reverend Thomas Markham and the Battle of Franklin.”

Mississippian and Presbyterian minister Thomas Markham had a front row seat at some of the Civil War’s greatest events including the Vicksburg Siege, the fall of Atlanta and the Battle of Franklin. His letters to family and friends, including those at Franklin’s Carnton, are fascinating first-hand accounts of the war years.

Ricci is a native of New Orleans, a graduate assistant at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, and is currently working on his thesis, A Tear of Patriotism: Brigadier General George Day Wagner and the Advanced Line at the Battle of Franklin. He has served as curator at New Orleans’ oldest museum, Confederate Memorial Hall, and has contributed to publications about Thomas Markham and the postwar years of General John Bell Hood.

The event is free to the public and this month held at Franklin’s Hiram Mason Lodge located at 115 South 2nd Avenue in Franklin. Tours will be given after the presentation for those interested in this historic Franklin structure.

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