TVCWRT topic for November 10, 2017
The Unraveling of a Confederate State:
The Last Year of Civil War Alabama Part 1
By John H. Allen
Originally presented to the Alabama Association of Historians
Jacksonville State University this past February.
Abstract
In the last year of the Civil War, Confederate Alabama was running short of just about everything, and every aspect of life was disintegrating. Before the conflict finally ended, some 25-percent of Alabama’s white population was receiving some form of relief. The Southern Cause was dying, as it was said, “by the graduals.” Nine reasons for the disintegration have been identified and will be presented.
Meanwhile, with disorders occurring everywhere, and Federal armies marching thru the state, the Alabama legislature refused to give the governor control of the militia. So, Alabama limped toward defeat with thousands of militiamen under the control of neither the governor nor the Confederacy.
Finally, this paper will explore how the much romanticized Southern Cause was, in fact, not supported by great numbers of its citizens in Alabama.
Our speaker is John Allen (Bio)
He was a multiple-award-winning radio and TV reporter when he came to Huntsville 40 years ago to work at WAAY. Since that time, he has also worked at UAH, Intergraph, and Amana in Fayetteville.
While on the Beautification Board here, he was instrumental in getting ordinances passed that provided a tree ordinance, a tree commission, a city arborist, and landscaping of commercial parking lots and street medians.
John was once president of this Roundtable for five years, during which time, he inaugurated the “Little Roundtable Discussion Group,” now in its sixth year. He is currently president of the Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society where he recently hosted 100 historians from five surrounding counties for a Bicentennial update.
He is married to Joan, a school teacher, has two grown children and one grandchild. Here now, speaking on…
The Unraveling of a Confederate State:
The Last Year of Civil War Alabama…
Please welcome John Allen
Leave a Reply