Clarksville, TN – The Clarksville Civil War Roundtable announces its October 2023 program and speaker. The meeting is always open to interested members of the public.
The next Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable meeting will be on Wednesday, October 18th, 2023 at Fort Defiance Civil War Park, our new home, 120 Duncan Street, off New Providence Boulevard. Turn onto Walker Street off New Providence Boulevard and then onto Duncan Street. There are site markers on New Providence Boulevard above and below the park.
The meeting begins at 7:00pm and is always open to the public. The Clarksville Civil War Roundtable began in March 2004 and featured well-known authors and historians as speakers.
Our Speaker and Topic – “General William Loring and His Division”
General William Loring was born in North Carolina but moved to Florida when he was only four. As a teenager, Loring fought in the state militia against the Seminoles and was promoted to lieutenant by eighteen.
Later, he became a lawyer and state legislator. When the Army organized the Regiment of Mounted Rifles (later 3rd U.S. Cavalry), Loring was given a commission as a captain and fought in the Mexican War, rising to major and regimental command and losing his arm at Chapultapec.
He remained with the Mounted Rifles, rising to colonel, and commanded the unit during their famous cross-country march to Oregon. After service out West, in 1861, Loring resigned his colonel’s commission (the youngest to hold that rank in the U.S. Army) and went to Virginia to join the Confederate Army as a colonel but was promoted to Brigadier General in May.
His Confederate career began with the fighting in western Virginia, where he would come under the command of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. The two officers butted heads constantly and Loring left that command with a Major General’s commission and was sent west to Mississippi in November 1862.
His division fought in the Vicksburg Campaign at Champion’s Hill and escaped being taken with the garrison in July 1863. Loring and his division were sent to Georgia and fought in the Atlanta and Tennessee campaigns. His Civil War career ended in North Carolina in late April 1865.
After the war, Loring went to Egypt to serve as a Brigadier General in that army, fighting in a major campaign and becoming Inspector General of that army. He was awarded the title of Pasha for his service. By 1879, Loring was back in the U.S. and was involved in business and finance but also in demand as a lecturer and gathered material for his proposed autobiography before his sudden death by pneumonia in December 1886 in New York. He is buried in St. Augustine, Florida, where he grew up.
William Loring was one of the Civil War’s more interesting commanders, and our speaker this month, Ross Massey, will inform us of the division he commanded in the war. This is based on his new book, “Loring’s Division,” which he will have for sale at the meeting.
