Richard McMurry Addresses Sept. 12 Meeting 

Our September guest was Richard McMurry, who spoke  on the topic "The Civil Wars of General Joseph E. Johnston." Dr. McMurry discussed the decisive role of the battles in the Western Theater and attributed the Confederates' failure in the West largely to poor generalship.

Much of McMurry's talk focused on his decades of research into the career of General Johnston and his findings that shed light on Johnston's record.

If you think that a talk about discoveries made in various depositories and archives would be dry and uninteresting, you are wrong.  Thank you, Dr. McMurry, for joining us again and expanding our knowledge of history and the writing of history.

Our speaker on October 10 will be Ethan Rafuse, who will talk about the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, or "Little Mac's Grand Campaign.

Speaker Lineup for 2023-24

Jeffry Wert to Receive Atlanta Round Table's  Harwell Award

   The Atlanta Civil War Round Table is pleased to announce that Jeffry D. Wert has been selected to receive the 2023 Richard Barksdale Harwell Award for The Heart of Hell: The Soldiers' Struggle for Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle.
   The Harwell Award is given annually by the Round Table for the best book on a Civil War subject published in the preceding year. “Mr. Wert is an outstanding scholar and a superb writer,” said Round Table president Loran Crabtree. “In The Heart of Hell the story of this fierce battle is told by the ordinary soldiers who fought it,” Crabtree added, “and is a valuable contribution to Civil War literature.”
   Gary Barnes, chairman of the Harwell Award Committee, oversaw the selection process. “Our committee members carefully read numerous books written by some of the most accomplished Civil War scholars,” Barnes said, “and after much deliberation we picked Jeffry’s book as the best of the best.”
   Consisting of a monetary prize and an engraved plaque, the award honors the late Richard Barksdale Harwell, nationally recognized librarian, bibliographer and historian. Harwell served as the first president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table from 1949 to 1951.
   Books on any subject related to the Civil War can be considered for the award. Entries are judged on a variety of factors, including: originality of subject or treatment; historical accuracy; effectiveness of presentation; and the degree of original contribution to Civil War scholarship.
   The Round Table first presented the Harwell Award in 1989. Recent recipients include Caroline Janney, Charles Knight, Stephen Davis, Hampton Newsome and Wilson Greene. Wert previously won the award in 2012 for A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee’s Triumph, 1862-1863.
   Wert will address the November 2023 meeting of the Round Table, at which time the award will be presented. The prize-winning work was published by the University of North Carolina Press.
   The Round Table is now accepting nominations for the 2024 Harwell Award. To be considered for this year's award, all nominations and copies of books from publishers or authors, must be received by the Atlanta Round Table by December 31, 2023.

For more information please contact:

Atlanta Civil War Round Table
Richard Barksdale Harwell Award Committee
ATTN: Gary Barnes
7535 Belton Bridge Road
Lula, Georgia 30554-2346