Rick Britton speaking at the
Charlottesville Senior Center Wednesday.
Regular listeners of our podcasts might know Rick Britton. He’s a Charlottesville-based author, lecturer, and cartographer. An award-winning historian, Rick also organizes a “Civil War Lecture and Day-Trip Series” in conjunction with the Charlottesville Senior Center.
On Wednesday, August 17, 2011 Rick Britton himself delivered a presentation entitled “Saving Stonewall’s Bacon: The Charlottesville Artillery at Port Republic.” An interesting tale about an incident that took place on June 8th, 1862-just one day prior to the Battle of Port Republic-it’s about how the Charlottesville Artillerymen, brand new soldiers with no combat experience, stood to their guns and saved their army’s baggage and ammunition trains from capture by an uncharacteristically aggressive Federal cavalry force.
On Wednesday, August 24th, Rick Britton will conduct a tour of the Cross Keys and Port Republic Battlefields. Fought on June 8th and 9th, 1862, these twin Southern victories were the perfect finale for General Jackson’s successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The tour will visit Cross Keys in the morning, then lunch in Port Republic. In the afternoon the tour will take in stops on the Port Republic battleline. Bus tour departs from the Charlottesville Senior Center at 9:00 AM. There is a fee for the tour. Call 974-6538 for more information.
This is part five of a seven part series for 2011. You can listen to all seven parts of this series here.