Atlanta Round Table Table will restart its dinner me Resumes Field Trips ings in September. The tours Joh has organized have gotten Round Table members out to some of Like many retired people, John Georgia’s many Civil War sites Miller is as busy, if not busier, during the pandemic and will than he was when he was work- continue after the regular proing. The retired civil engineer, grams resume. after careers in the Navy and In March a dozen or so memthe Department of Housing and bers toured the Confederate line Urban Development, says “his protecting the northwest perimefamily and his church come first.” ter of Atlanta against Sherman’s After that he takes care of a very invading force. This initial fie large garden with his wife Jane, trip was led by Charlie Crawford and also plays in two bands, “old Round Table member and presifolks bands,” John calls them. He dent of the Georgia Battlefields had just come from band prac- Association. The works are long tice, and was toting his guitar, gone, of course, as the land has when we met to talk about a new for many decades been part duty he has assumed, organizing of the Georgia Tech campus. field trips for the Atlanta Civil Undulations in the terrain that War Round Table. are today barely noticeable on John has been a member of the the pavement and among campus Round Table since 2009 and was buildings were significant battl elected to a slot on the organi- field features. With maps and pe zation’s Executive Committee in riod photographs to supplement 2020. Last spring Mary-Elizabeth his narration, Charlie brought t Ellard, who was moving into the past to life. president’s chair, prevailed upon “As we stood by the building John to set up a series of tours near the Georgia Tech natatorito supplement to Round Table’s um and looked over to where the regular monthly meetings and Ponder House was, with Charlie’s lectures. The COVID pandem- explanation and the photograph, ic interrupted the Round Table’s you can almost make the jump,” plans as it did everything else. John said. For several months there were Jim Ogden, the National no meetings at all, then lectures Park Service Historian at were held via Zoom. The Round Chickamauga, led the April tour.
GEORGIA’S CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS In Honor of a Fallen Nation Gould B. Hagler, Jr. This unique work contains a complete photographic record of Georgia’s memorials to the Confederacy, a full transcription of the words engraved upon them, and carefully-researched information about the monuments and the organizations which built them. These works of art and their eloquent inscriptions express a nation’s profound grief, praise the soldiers’ bravery and patriotism, and pay homage to the cause for which they fought.
In May the tour went to Jonesboro, a few miles south of Atlanta, to examine the site of the final battle before the fal Atlanta. Bill Dodd, a Round Tab member and expert on this phase of the Atlanta Campaign, led th excursion. John pointed out tha Bill is “the author of a highly informative volume on Clayton County campaigns during the War of the Rebellion.” Bill also took the group to the Patrick Cleburne Cemetery in downtown Jonesboro, where hundreds of Confederate soldier are buried. John said, “We shar a picnic lunch at the old railr depot,” stressing that these ac ities are not just about the hi ry. They are also about the fel lowship with other Round Table members, who have not seen much of each other during the COVID pandemic. June found 15 Round Table
Atlanta Round Table at the monume Chickamauga. Photo by John Miller Ruins of the Mill at New Manchest October 2021
Just as important, there is no several forts in the Confederate shortage of talent to lead the lines of northwest Atlanta,” he tours. There are plenty of local said. The Federals were unable experts willing to volunteer and to breach the lines, so Sherman help further the Round Table’s went around. Hence the tour to mission of promoting the serious Jonesboro south of the city. “By study of the Civil War. Many of severing and holding the rail li these experts are also members at Jonesboro in late August 1864 of the Round Table, all the ones Atlanta’s fall was imminent, so mentioned, in fact, except one. we chose to tour this important As these events entail no ex- area.” penditures by the Round Table, John said that the tour of th no fees were charged, but John mill at New Manchester “prohas encouraged attendees, and ev- vided insight into economic suseryone else, to contribute to wor- tenance of the Confederacy, plus thy causes related to the tours: the we learned of the fate of many o Georgia Battlefields Association, the mill workers and their famiFriends of Sweetwater Creek lies.” Of course, Civil War monu State Park, and National Park ments have frequently been in th P a r t n e r s— C h i c k a m a u g a - news of late, “so we visited the Chattanooga-Moccasin Bend. site of some of the earliest mon John took on this job when the ments, Chickamauga.” pandemic caused the cancella- Regarding the upcoming tour tion of the Round Table’s dinner at Kennesaw, John pointed out meetings. “The zoom gatherings that “Sherman learned much were still being planned,” he said, at Kennesaw Mountain and the “so there was talk of field trips to death of Leonidas Polk had an at least have our members active impact on Confederate military together.” leadership during the Atlanta John pointed out how the tours campaign.” As for the next trip focused on different aspects of toward the northwest, “the batthe war. “We toured the sites of tles for Chattanooga proved an important step in the career of U.S. Grant; Missionary Ridge was the beginning of the end for Atlanta, and ultimately for the Confederacy.”
The August column told the stories of three famous women,
Antonia Ford Willard, Pauline Cushman, and Loreta Velazquez. Regarding Miss Major Cushman, I mentioned the reports of her visit with Abraham Lincoln at
which she demanded her back pay. I received an email from William Christen, author of Pauline Cushman, Spy of the the 1st Ohio Infantry at Cumberland. In my column I stated that I was relaying press oto by John Miller.
accounts and would not attempt to separate fact from fiction. didn’t, but Mr. Christen did. H advised me that in a very thorough search of sources, including accounts of Lincoln’s daily schedules, he found no evidence Cushman ever met Lincoln.
Gould Hagler is a retired lobby ist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He
a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. Hagle speaks frequently on this topic and others related to different
