A Message from the CEO

Summer 2023

We have just completed another fiscal year and I am excited to tell you that we have (once again) finished with our best year ever! All three sites continue to thrive and welcome visitors from across the country, and we continue to talk with them about the Battles of Spring Hill and Franklin, the Carters, McGavocks, and Cheairs, antebellum politics, slavery, Reconstruction, and how the United States was redefined by the American Civil War.

As we move closer and closer to the 160th anniversaries of the Battles of Spring Hill and Franklin in the fall of 2024, it is sometimes hard to believe the Sesquicentennial was almost a decade ago. So much has changed. Guests are acutely aware of the changes, and the inevitability of time. Recently a guest asked me, “What is next?” Before I could answer he then asked, “Do people still care about history?”  My answer to the latter was simple. I said, “Yes.” To the former I offered some thoughts. I said that every generation sees the past differently. I also said that facts do not change, but how people interpret them and how people feel, or react, to them is ever changing.

As you have heard me say, we are in the midst of a full-throttled reckoning with our past. We are confronting the ghosts of African slavery, race, the Confederacy, our collective memory, and the path the United States has taken over nearly 250 years.  There is much to be proud of, but there are also long-ignored episodes that we are finally addressing. By doing so we are stripping away some of the excuses and much of the romance.

Just over 160 years ago, the divided nation was reeling from two years of bloody war. The Battle of Gettysburg had rocked both sides, the Vicksburg Campaign had changed the course of the war, emancipation was unfolding day by day, and the Battle of Chickamauga was about to erupt. The President of the United States was soon to take a train to speak at the new National Cemetery at Gettysburg.

In January 1864, Frederick Douglass spoke at the Cooper Institute in New York City. He addressed the war, and what was at the heart of the matter:

“Now, for what is all this desolation, ruin, shame, suffering and sorrow? Can anybody want the answer? Can anybody be ignorant of the answer? It has been given a thousand times from this and other platforms. We all know it is slavery. Less than a half a million of Southern slaveholders - holding in bondage four million slaves - finding themselves outvoted in the effort to get possession of the United States government, in order to serve the interests of slavery, have madly resorted to the sword - have undertaken to accomplish by bullets what they failed to accomplish by ballots. That is the answer. It is worthy of remark that secession was an afterthought with the rebels. Their aim was higher; secession was only their second choice.”

People can debate whether Douglass was right or not. But what he said is undeniable, and for too long we have ignored powerful statements such as his. As Douglass spoke, there remained almost sixteen months of war and nearly 300,000 were yet to die. Those who lived in Spring Hill and Franklin could not have possibly fathomed what would happen to them before the war’s conclusion.

We have struggled with the results of the war since the guns fell silent. But we are closer than ever to confronting how close we came to our own destruction.  I believe we are closer than ever to understanding that the United States could only live up its ultimate potential with issues like secession and slavery destroyed forever.

Every day of the week, and every month of the year, we talk to guests on our Classic House tours, as well as Extended, Slavery, Battlefield, Behind the Scenes, Reconstruction, and Amazing Grace tours. Every day, we believe, guests learn something about our past and where we are headed. We have committed ourselves to this important work. But nothing is more important than what was started in 1775-76, how the American experiment nearly collapsed between 1861-65, and how we have spent over 160 years confronting our civil war and our role in racialized, legal slavery. Our commitment is to continue to educate, to talk, and to do our part.

Some of us have been working at this for nearly two decades. Today, in addition to the 100,000+ guests we see each year, we convey our mission and our message through print, through a broad online presence, including our expansive YouTube channel and podcast, and through this magazine. Almost fifteen years ago the name The Battlefield Dispatch came up at a breakfast meeting. It stuck. Early printings, for the first few years, were more like a newspaper. Then we converted it to a magazine format. Several years ago, we changed the name to simply The Dispatch. We have printed quarterly issues for a long time. But as we move into new arenas, we inevitably must change others.

This will be our last summer issue. We will continue to print three issues a year – spring, fall, and winter. Time does not cease, and neither do changes. But do not worry. If you are a member, you will still receive plenty of e-mails and updates!! Also, our YouTube channel, which is produced by BOFT Films, always has something new.

In closing, you will read or hear about a number of important announcements and acquisitions in the months to come. We may have started this many years ago, but we still have a great deal of work to do.

Eric A. Jacobson
Chief Executive Officer
The Battle of Franklin Trust