The War You Thought You Understood Is Not the War That Was Waged
Schedule
Thu Sep 12 2024 at 06:30 pm
Location
St John's Episcopal Church | Wilmington, NC
Cape Fear Civil War Round Table FeaturesThe Confederate Gunpowder Strategy
Wilmington’s Cape Fear Civil War Round Table invites the public to attend the first meeting of our 2024-25 “Campaign” year. The meeting will be held on Thursday evening, September 12, at centrally located St. John’s Episcopal Church in Midtown Wilmington near Independence Mall. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the meeting begins at 7:00 p.m.
Our first speaker this campaign year is Theodore P. “Ted” Savas. A native of northern Iowa, Ted has a B.A. in history, and practiced law for many years in Silicon Valley. He has been a full-time publisher and writer since 1990.
The publisher of literally hundreds of important military history studies, Ted was one of the authors of Never for Want of Powder: The Confederate Powder Works in Augusta, Georgia. It’s widely believed that Confederate President Jefferson Davis made a significant strategic mistake during the first year of the war by choosing to defend nearly every square mile of Confederate territory, and that this mistake helped doom the Confederacy.
According to Ted Savas, it is demonstrably false to blame the loss of the war on Davis’s Cordon or Perimeter Defense Strategy. Rather, Ted links Davis to the immensely significant but generally unknown Confederate Colonel George Washington Rains, one of the two “Bomb Brothers.” George Rains was a native of New Bern, N.C., who graduated from West Point. Although little remembered today, Col. Rains established the Confederacy’s modern and successful gunpowder works in Augusta, Ga. The war you think you understand was not the war that was actually waged, according to Ted Savas.
The meeting will be held in Elebash Hall in St. John’s Episcopal Church. Enter at the rear of the church, which is located at 1219 Forest Hills Drive. The church parking lot, close to the entrance to the meeting room, is easily accessed via Park Avenue off of Independence Boulevard. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and there is ample time to browse our used books table, and talk to members of the round table. For information about membership in the round table, go to our website at http://cfcwrt.org and click on “Join".
See you there!