Ethan Rafuse to Speak at October Meeting
Our guest on October 10 will be Ethan
Rafuse, Professor of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and
General Staff College. Prof. Rafuse's topic will be “Little
Mac’s Grand Campaign,” an analysis of Gen. George McClellan's
Peninsula Campaign of 1862.

Speaker Lineup for 2023-24
Behind the scenes tour of the Atlanta
History Center
Gordon Jones
will lead a group of Round Table members on a special insiders’ tour
of the Atlanta History Center on October 15. The one-hour tour will
begin at 2:00, at the west entrance adjacent to the parking lot. A
maximum of 30 members can be accommodated. This is a great
opportunity to learn about some new and unseen artifacts from the
History Center's collection. The fee is a modest $15.
You
can register
here or by paying at the October 10 Round Table
meeting.
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