Welcome
Thank you so much for visiting our website and taking a look at our program. During the last two weeks of June, 2009 we will be offering a workshop for educators that will focus on how the North’s Civil War slowly became a war for emancipation. To say the least, the process was complicated. The Union army occupied Nashville beginning in March, 1862, an occupation (which included the control of most of Middle Tennessee) that began to turn the North’s soldiers and officers into active liberators.
Our workshop will combine presentations by national and local scholars with the touring of historic sites. The workshop will be based at Travellers Rest Plantation, home of the Overton family. The Overtons were one of the wealthiest families in Tennessee and were vital to the economic development of the city of Nashville. As well, we will tour Fort Negley, the most important fortification built by the Union army in the Tennessee capital, and one of the most important remaining contraband labor sites in the United States (the fortification was built by African American workers). We will also tour Stone’s River National Battlefield, paying particular attention to the National Cemetery on site and the remains of an African American community that was once located there. Finally, we will tour Chickamauga National Battlefield in Chattanooga.
We will hold two workshops: June 14-19, 2009, and June 21-26, 2009. Participants will attend one of the two (each are exactly the same). Over the course of the five-day workshop we will let participants see how diverse and dynamic middle Tennessee was in the years before the war; how the shock of war and invasion created social revolution; how Union soldiers and African American slaves became allies in a war for freedom; how the men of both sides became expert soldiers in destructive war.
Please navigate through our site. We have tried to include all the necessary information, including accommodations, the schedule, the faculty, and procedures for application. For any questions you may have please feel free to email me, the project director, Robert Hunt at Middle Tennessee State University