This month we’ll be having a series of events to celebrate the Pellissippi Common Book, David Madden’s Sharpshooter. The novel follows the confused wanderings of Willis Carr, a kid from East Tennessee who rides down to Knoxville to find the Civil War, and finds more than he had bargained for. Events include:
- April 9, Earl Hess, associate professor and director of the history program at Lincoln Memorial University and author of 10 books about the Civil War, will discuss a new book about the Knoxville campaign. 9:40 a.m. Goins Auditorium.
- April 9: Steve Dean, producer of a new film, Its Memory Alone Remains: The Battle of Fort Sanders, November 29, 1863, will discuss his full-scale reconstruction of the Fort Sanders earthworks, located in East Knox County. 11:50 a.m. Goins Auditorium.
- April 9: David Madden, Earl Hess, Steve Dean, and Joan Markel will participate in a roundtable discussion moderated by Edward Francisco, Pellissippi State’s Writer in Residence. 2 p.m. Goins Auditorium.
- April 11 and 12: Civil War reenactors invade campus. Members of the 63rd Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Confederate) and the 8th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Federal) will camp, drill, and fire rifles, interacting with visitors as it were April 1863. Infantry drills at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., and 3 p.m. on Saturday.
My CGT 1030 students last semester created flickr pages, t-shirt designs, and Google My Maps in reaction to Sharpshooter, a novel I was privileged to design in 1996. (Confederate currency photo by Benjamin Earwicker)
