The student presenters at the battlefield, from left, Shannon Rowe, Renae Geisler, Haley Thistlethwaite, Lauren Miller, Dr. Bledsoe, Adam Gilbert, Noah Hinton, and Sam Doss.
Shannon Rowe in her General George Thomas costume.
Sam Doss presenting at Helm’s Monument.
A group of Lee University students gave presentations at Chickamauga National Military Park in Fort Oglethorpe. The students were members of Dr. Drew Bledsoe’s “HIST 490: The Battle of Chickamauga in History and Memory” class.
Eight students, all history majors, presented on a variety of topics about the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga. Presentation titles included “Leonidas Polk’s Non-Attack on the Morning of the 20th,” “The Kentucky State Monument,” “Longstreet’s Breakthrough of the Union Line,” “Letters about Wilder,” and “Aftermath of the Battle of Chickamauga.”
“The Battle of Chickamauga is my favorite Civil War battle and the one that I had studied about the most,” said Shannon Rowe, a student in the Chickamauga class. “This class gave me the opportunity to dress as my hero, General George Thomas, and to deliver my presentation in first person on the hill he so nobly defended during the battle.”
This class is the first to be offered of its kind at Lee University. Over the course of the past semester, students engaged in original research projects, readings, and discussions about the battle and efforts to commemorate and preserve the site. The heart of the course consisted of several weekend excursions to the battlefield, culminating in the final presentations this past weekend.
“My goal for this course was for my students to learn and write about the Battle of Chickamauga as historians, but I also wanted them to connect with the past in tangible, unconventional ways,” said Dr. Bledsoe. “There’s something powerful about walking on the actual field of battle as we listened to the words of participants and experienced the sensations and terrain as soldiers and officers did in 1863. It was really gratifying to watch my students throw themselves into their projects and presentations.”
Dr. Bledsoe joined the faculty of Lee University as an assistant professor of history in fall 2013. He is the author of a number of scholarly works on the Civil War and American military history. This summer, Dr. Bledsoe will participate in a seminar in military history highlighting the Civil War at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
For more information about Lee’s history department, call 614-8137.