Bill Bergen
Regular listeners of our podcast or our live streaming feed might know Rick Britton. He’s a historian and cartographer and a frequent guest on WINA’s Charlottesville Right Now with Coy Barefoot. Rick also organizes a Civil War lecture and day-trip series in conjunction with the Charlottesville Senior Center.
On Tuesday October 13, 2009, Bill Bergen, an expert on Union Maj. Gen. Horatio Wright, delivered a presentation on General Wright and the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia. Fought on October 19th, 1864, Cedar Creek—the last major action in the Shenandoah Valley—pitted Confederate Gen. Jubal Early with approximately 15,000 men, against Union Gen. Philip Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah with about twice that number. Early surprised the Federal force with a pre-dawn attack, and was driving it northward, when Sheridan, who had missed the opening of the fight, famously rode to the sound of the guns, rallied his shaken troops, and led them to an overwhelming victory that helped Lincoln win the 1864 election.
This is the seventh and final part of this series for 2009.