Please note: Optional Dinner will start at 6:00 PM. The Lecture will start at 7:00 PM. To make dinner reservations, email CvilleCWRT@gmail.com and indicate your entree choice: ribeye steak, salmon or chicken. Dinner includes salad and dessert. Cost is $24 for members and $30 for non-members.

On June 14, 1863, US Major General John Adams Dix received the following directive from General-in-Chief Henry Halleck: “All your available force should be concentrated to threaten Richmond, by seizing and destroying their railroad bridges over the South and North Anna Rivers, and do them all the damage possible.” With General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia marching toward Gettysburg and only a limited Confederate force guarding Richmond, Halleck sensed a rare opportunity for the Union cause.

In response, Dix, who had lived a life of considerable public service but possessed limited military experience, gathered his men and began a slow advance. During the ensuing operation, 20,000 US troops would threaten the Confederate capital and seek to cut the railroads supplying Lee’s army in Pennsylvania. To some, Dix’s campaign presented a tremendous chance for US forces to strike hard at Richmond while Lee was off in Pennsylvania. To others, it was an unnecessary lark that tied up units deployed more effectively in protecting Washington and confronting Lee's men on Northern soil.

Hampton Newsome is author of Gettysburg's Southern Front: Opportunity and Failure at Richmond, the book on which this lecture is based. It was published in 2022. He is also the author of The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina, January-May 1864 - a study of military operations in North Carolina in 1864, which was listed as the Book of the Year for 2019 by the Civil War Books and Authors blog.  Mr. Newsome also wrote Richmond Must Fall, which covers the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign in October 1864 and was recognized as a best book of 2013 by Civil War Monitor magazine.