On the second Tuesday of each month the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable holds a dinner meeting with a program about the American Civil War. The speaker are usually authors and historians.
On Tuesday, March 9, 2010 Dr. Michèle Butts will speak on the topic “The Galvanized Yankees: Confederate Prisoners of War in Blue.”
A native of Clarksville, Dr. Michèle Butts grew up in the “shadow” of Fort Donelson, and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in History from Austin Peay State University. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of New Mexico, directed by Dr. Paul Andrew Hutton and Dr. Richard Ellis. Her book, Galvanized Yankees on the Upper Missouri: The Face of Loyalty published by the University Press of Colorado in 2003, allowed her to blend her three scholarly interests: the Civil War, the American West, and Native American History. Dr. Butts is a Professor of History at Austin Peay State University, and has taught in Kentucky as well as New Mexico.
Galvanized Yankees:
The First United States Volunteer
Infantry Regiment
As the Second Battle of Bull Run was raging in Virginia, vengeful Santee Sioux war parties were burning, pillaging, and killing hundreds of settlers along the Minnesota-Dakota-Iowa frontier. Horrified residents clamored for military action, but President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton were hard pressed to keep troops on the battle lines in the South. They met the desperate need for additional manpower in December 1863 by permitting the recruitment of Confederate prisoners of war into the Union army, beginning under Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler at Point Lookout Prison in Maryland. Distrusting the enlisted prisoners of war, Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant sent them to Maj. Gen. John Pope, commanding the Department of the Northwest, to garrison western forts and to protect the overland trails.
Designated the “First United States Volunteer Infantry Regiment” by General Butler, these Confederate prisoners of war were enlisted between January and June 1864 with the understanding that they would not face their former comrades on the battlefield in the East. General Grant’s orders, however, sent half of them to the Minnesota frontier and half to Dakota Territory. The Dakota Battalion garrisoned Fort Rice on the Upper Missouri, where they assisted travelers, fought Native raiders, supervised Indian traders, and gathered reconnaissance for their district commander, Brig. Gen. Alfred Sully. Severely suffering from subzero temperatures; debilitating diseases; and inadequate equipment, food, and supplies, the Dakota Battalion of the First U.S. Volunteers faithfully manned their posts and served their country until they were mustered out in November 1865. As one of their officers commented, they were “the first fruits of a reunited people.”
The meeting place is The Bearden Banquet Hall (next to Buddy’s Bar-B-Q) at 5806 Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Visitors are welcome.
Call (865) 671-9001 by 11 AM on Monday, March 8 to make dinner reservations.
For more information click on Newsletter and read The Scout’s Report.
Thank you for visiting this Website.
