Everyone is welcome at our monthly meetings

NOTICE: We've been moved back (by the hotel chain) to the Holiday Inn Oakbrook for our meetings. Meetings for the 2023-24 Year will be in-person. but will also be simulcast on Zoom. Zoom details for each meeting will be emailed to members via the newsletter.


April 12th
Will Greene on Opening the Cracker Line and Keeping it Open: The Decisive Battles of the Chattanooga Campaign

Following the battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, General William S. Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland retreated into Chattanooga. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee surrounded the city on three sides and laid a quasi-siege for more than a month. Supplies for the Union forces gradually dwindled, reaching crisis level by the third week of October. Rosecrans, who seemed incapable of lifting the siege, gave way to Ulysses S. Grant, who approved a daring plan to open a new line of supply. That plan succeeded on October 27, opening what the Federal soldiers called the "Cracker Line." The Confederates' effort to redeem the situation resulted in one of the Civil War's rare night battles near a railroad junction called Wauhatchie. Will Greene will argue that these two relatively minor actions decided the outcome of the campaign for Chattanooga and that the famous battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge should have never occurred.

A. Wilson "Will" Greene is a native Chicagoan who grew up in Western Springs and Wheaton. Following a sixteen-year career with the National Park Service, Greene became the first executive director of the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, now the American Battlefield Trust. He then became the founding director of Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier. Greene is the author of six books and a dozen published articles and essays dealing with the Civil War. His current project with the University of North Carolina Press is a three-volume history of the Petersburg Campaign. The first volume, A Campaign of Giants, was published in 2018 and Volume 2 is due out early in 2025. Greene was the recipient of the Nevins-Freeman Award in 2012. Greene now lives in Walden, Tennessee, hard by the Anderson Pike, about which he will speak at our meeting.

For our 2023-2024 program year, we proudly welcome these outstanding speakers:

Sept. 8th, 2023: Al Ovies on "The Boy Generals. George Custer, Wesley Merritt and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac"
Oct. 13th: Carleton Young on "Two Vermont Brothers in the Army of the Potomac"
Nov. 10th: Ernest Dollar on "Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in the Civil War"
Dec. 8th: Scott Mingus on "Texans at Chickamauga"
Jan. 12th, 2024: Pat and Dylan Brennan on "Gettysburg in Color" (zoom only)
Feb. 9th: Carolyn B. Ivanoff on "We fought at Gettysburg. The 17th Connecticut"
March 8th: Chris Bryan on "The Union XII Corps"
April 12th: Will Greene on "The Cracker Line in the Battle of Chattanooga"
May 10th: Lynn and Julianne Herman on "The Allegheny Arsenal Explosion"
June 14th: Tim Smith (Nevins-Freeman Award) on "Vicksburg"

Copies of recorded meetings are available for a small charge. Click here for a printable list of recorded meetings. More current meetings can be viewed on Youtube.

Our meetings are held at:

Holiday Inn Oakbrook
350 W 22nd St., Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181
Parking at the Holiday Inn is FREE
Map and Directions

Dinner $40.00 Members and Non- Members
Cocktails at 5:30, Dinner at 6:30

Presentation only is $10 per person.
Payable at the door, cash or check. Be there by 7:15. For those attending the presentation only, your reservation is appreciated but not required.
Dinner reservations should be received by Sunday evening prior to the meeting.
Please make your reservation in advance by emailing DinnerReservations@ChicagoCWRT.org with the names of your party or by calling (630) 460-1865
Cancellations: email us at DinnerReservations@ChicagoCWRT.org  or call (630) 460-1865

Dinner choices. The CWRT has gone to a buffet style dinner. The buffet will include caeser salad, pasta, garlic bread, two meats (grilled chicken, meat balls, or Italian sausage) and dessert.