Historian talks Battle of Franklin at Pamplin Park event

Historian William Lee White will share wartime insights from his book “Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin 1864” at an event at Pamplin Historical Park & The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier on Thursday at 7 p.m.

A book sale and signing will follow the presentation.

One of the worst disasters for the Confederate States Army took place on Nov. 30, 1864 in Franklin, Tennessee. A series of costly frontal assaults by Confederate Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood against fortified Union positions is sometimes referred to as the “Pickett’s Charge of the West.”

Union Maj. Gen. John Schofield’s forces held their positions and inflicted devastating losses on the enemy to include fourteen generals being killed, wounded and one was captured.

William Lee White is a park ranger at the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, where he gives tours and other programs at the Chickamauga and Lookout Mountain Battlefields. He is the author of Bushwhacking on a Grand Scale: The Battle of Chickamauga, part of the Emerging Civil War Series, as well as several articles and essays on topics related to the Western Theater.

The Petersburg Civil War Roundtable meets the first Thursday of each month at Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier from 7-8 p.m. Annual membership is $40. Individuals who are already members of Pamplin Historical Park can become members of PCWRT for $20. Non-members can attend for $5 each meeting. Call (804) 861-2408 for more information.