The Battle of Franklin Trust Institute
We are excited to announce a new annual event and are officially launching The Battle of Franklin Trust Institute. Over the next thirteen years, the Institute will be hosted in Franklin and Spring Hill during the first weekend in November. It will usually run from a Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon. In 2039, the culmination of the Institute will be the 175th anniversaries of the battles at Spring Hill and Franklin and the 250th anniversary of the Constitution going into operation. Between now and then the Institute will focus on four subjects annually, with a different theme each year. The main subjects will be:
The Founding 1776 - 1789
Antebellum America 1800 - 1859
The Western Theater of the Civil War 1861 - 1865
Reconstruction 1865 - 1876
Each year will also include bus tours of the battlefields and visits to Carnton, Carter House, and Rippa Villa. The Institute will feature Richard Condon and Joseph Ricci as sitting faculty chairs. They will lead and coordinate different speakers and programs as the Institute progresses.
This year's Institute will be held on November 6-7 in Franklin, and the theme is "What Is Liberty?" Attendance for the inaugural event will be capped at 35 people, and the cost will be $100. Beginning in 2027, the annual cap will be 100 people, and the cost will be $250-$300. We will also have discounted hotel rooms available for those interested in participating.
** Please note that the purchase link will show only November 7 as available, but that covers both days **
schedule of events
November 6, 2026:
10:00 am – Welcome by Eric A. Jacobson, CEO of the Battle of Franklin Trust
10:30 am - Introductions
10:45 am – Richard P. Condon - “Proclaim Liberty - The Stono Rebellion in History and Memory”
During the Stono Rebellion enslaved people on the South Carolina coast proclaimed “Liberty!” upon homemade banners as they executed their enslavers and marched toward freedom in Spanish-controlled Florida in 1739.
Their actions portended the 1740 South Carolina Slave Code, which dictated harsher restrictions for enslaved Africans and African Americans until the effective abolishment of the institution in the state during the Civil War. Ironically, descendants of these enslaved people marched through the streets of Charleston in February 1865, likewise proclaiming “Liberty!” and singing “John Brown’s Body” while wearing uniforms furnished by the United States, the country that once considered them legal property.
Noon – Lunch
1:00 pm – Melissa Winn - “Cordelia Harvey, the Wisconsin Angel, and the Fight to Bring Union Soldiers Home From the West”
Cordelia Harvey’s life changed in an instant when her husband, Wisconsin Governor Louis Harvey, died while bringing supplies to Wisconsin soldiers wounded at Shiloh. His mission became hers. As a new widow, Harvey traveled to hospitals throughout the Western Theater as an agent for the Western Sanitary Commission, tending wounded soldiers and advocating for better conditions. When she became convinced that soldiers would recover more successfully closer to home, she took her case directly to President Abraham Lincoln—a remarkable act for a woman of her time—and won approval for military hospitals in Wisconsin. Thousands of men were saved by her actions. Her story asks, “What is liberty?” For Harvey, liberty meant fighting for a new life redefined for her and for the lives of the men who were fighting to preserve liberty. After the war, she advocated a new fight to provide housing and care for the orphans of Wisconsin Civil War soldiers.
2:00 pm – Joseph D. Ricci – “The Canal Street Coup: A Contest of Meaning and Memory”
After the American Civil War, New Orleans stood as the South’s largest, wealthiest, intact city. Defeated Rebels, formerly enslaved masses, displaced Southerners, advocates of Reconstruction Era policies, and U.S. Army officials flocked to the Crescent City and attempted, in many ways, to start a new life for themselves after four years of bloody, brutal war. The bloodshed, however, was far from over. Protests to the policies and progress of Reconstruction exploded across the South, and while New Orleans avoided major conflict from 1861 to 1865, in September 1874, violence erupted in the streets. The Battle of Liberty Place, as it has come to be known, pitted former Confederates and white supremacists against the State Militia and an integrated police force led by an unlikely member of the Republican Party. The outcome of a contested election and equality in the eyes of the law hung in the balance. In the dying days of Reconstruction, the events that transpired in New Orleans spelled doom for the progress made since the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. As Black Codes and Jim Crow laws undid the successes of Reconstruction, so too did certain forces move to erect a monument to the city's White League for their attempted “overthrow of carpetbag government.” Even following the 2017 removal of the “Liberty Place” monument, the battle over this uncomfortable chapter of history and its place in the collective historical memory rages on.
3:00 pm – Panel discussion – Interpreting the Western Theater
4:00 pm – Thoughts about the future
November 7, 2026:
Bus tour of Rippa Villa, Carter House, and Carnton
9 am – 3 pm with lunch at noon
Additional details forthcoming
3:30 pm – Concluding remarks
