Division Reunion June 26-28 Bardstown

The Kentucky Division 2009 reunion will be held in Bardstown, 26-28 June, 2009. The John Hunt Morgan Camp will host. The hotel is the Parkview--right across the street from My Old Kentucky Home. We'll be meeting and eating in Kurz restaurant, adjacent to the hotel.

There'll be time on the schedule to visit the excellent Bardstown Civil War museum and to visit the Confederate section of the city cemetery (where the SCV was instrumental in the repairs of storm damage a few years ago). They also have a fine women's museum, so be sure to bring the ladies!

Camp Calendar Online

The JCB Camp 100 Calendar is available online; by subscribing to the calendar you can not only see upcoming events, but get reminders. The calendar is posted at the top of our camp blog at www.camp100.blogspot.com and can be accessed directly at http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=rg2q7jh05517b40o1mjbptol4c%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York

The JCB Camp Discussion Group Is in the Works

Using Google Groups software, our camp will be working on creating an online discussion group over the next couple of months. If you have already given the adjutant your email address, in the next several weeks you will receive an invitation to join the group. If not, please provide your email to Bazz. The purpose of the group will be to get out announcements on camp meetings and activities, and to encourage discussion of camp projects. This will be a very limited focus, with a small flow of emails (honest). The group will have a private website where files and discussions are posted, but will also function as a traditional listserv where posts are put in your email inbox, so visiting the group website isn't necessary.

Slight Change in Meeting Format

Circumstances have caused a change in the way we handle meetings, which is that we are starting the speaker while we wait for the food. We had tried dividing the meeting into two equal parts, with business meeting and dinner in the first hour and speaker in the second, but sometimes the length of time getting the the food back out from the kitchen was sometimes getting us off-schedule. So, we'll try using that waiting time instead as the time for the speaker. So, our meetings now will still start at 6, but the speaker will be at approximately 6:15. This should insure that we are done on time.

Wills Wows

Brian Wills kept a nearly full house (33 in attendance) enthralled with all kinds of stories about that devil Forrest, a man surrounded by myths (many, it turns out, arising from his own ability to turn a good story), yet whom the truths are still amazing and inspirational. Wills did an excellent job of cutting through the myths to the fascinating realities, strengths and weaknesses of Forrest. Wills also hit the controversial head-on. The KKK? "Forrest didn't found the KKK, it found him". Ft. Pillow: "what happened wasn't mercy, but it wasn't a massacre".

We also were graced with the unveiling of an original piece of fabric art by JoAnna Grimes, wife of camp 100 member Mike Grimes. It was a very impressive piece that a picture doesn't truly capture. She make custom fabric pieces if you're interested. In all, a great meeting with good information and fellowship.

Meeting Thursday the 9th: Forrest!

Anybody like Nathan Bedford Forrest? We thought so. Well you get your chance to hear from the man who wrote what James I. (Bud) Robertson called "the best thing ever written on Forrest"! Brian Steel Wills will be our speaker this coming Thursday, April 9th at Columbia's Steak House on N. Limestone in Lexington. Meeting is at 6 and speaker at 7 (approximately). Wills is a professor of history at Virginia's College as Wise, and a former professor of history at Georgia Southern University. He has had articles published in Georgia Historical Quarterly, Journal of Military History and Parameters. In addition to "The Confederacy's Greatest Cavalryman: Nathan Bedford Forrest", he is also author of "The War Hits Home: The Civil War in Southeastern Virginia". and most recently "Gone with the Glory: The Civil War in Cinema." He spent several Summers as a teenager doing Confederate living history, serving on the light artillery crew at Petersburg National Battlefied.

Another must-hear speaker brought to you by the John C. Breckinridge Camp #100. See you Thursday!