You have an opportunity to help support the DeKalb Animal Coalition and learn about the Civil War in DeKalb County during a special program by Thomas G. Webb, DeKalb County Historian on Saturday, September 26 at 7:00 p.m. at the DeKalb County Complex Auditorium.
Adult admission is $10 per person and $3.00 for all students. Proceeds from the evening’s entertainment will go to the DeKalb Animal Coalition, a tax deductible organization dedicated to building a new animal shelter for our community.
In the video segment above, Webb told WJLE that his remarks will be only about the Civil War in DeKalb County, and not about the Civil War in general.
“I’ll talk about the Civil War in DeKalb County and as it affected DeKalb Countians,” he said.
“We had soldiers who went to the big battles and went to Virginia, Georgia, and other places. But just our soldiers who were in those places is all I’ll be talking about,” Webb said.
“When I was very young, I knew that Tennessee was a Confederate state and I expected all the soldiers from Tennessee to be Confederate. And I was surprised when I read Mr. Will T. Hale’s History of DeKalb County to find that we had a lot of Confederate soldiers but we also had a large number of Union soldiers. As it turned out we had about two thousand Confederate soldiers and we had about 700 Union soldiers. DeKalb County had as many Union soldiers as the six surrounding counties put together. And I’m going to talk about why we had so many Union soldiers in this county whereas the surrounding counties did not have. And that’s going to be one of my main subjects,” said Webb
The Civil War ended 150 years ago in April, 1865. So why do hard feelings related to that war still linger?. Why did so many DeKalb Countians join the Union Army? Why did DeKalb County civilians experience such intense and prolonged suffering? Why did some DeKalb Countians first join the Confederate Army and subsequently join the Union Army? What was life like for Prisoners of War? Confederate flag controversy: One Historian’s Perspective.