Civil War enthusiast and amateur historian Jim Stark will discuss General Grant’s 1864 Grand Campaign to conquer the south with his talk, “The Atlanta Campaign,” Thursday, September 25, 6:30 p.m. at the Northfield Historical Society. The event is free and open to the public.Stark, a former president of the Northfield and Rice County historical societies, will discuss General Grant’s 1864 Grand Campaign to conquer the south and how it had come to complete failure within three of his armies departments. Grant’s own objective, the destruction of General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had bogged down into a siege accompanied by huge losses of personnel. Northern morale was declining and the likelihood of President Lincoln’s reelection was becoming more unlikely every day. President Lincoln and the north now looked upon General William T. Sherman for the deliverance and the capture of Atlanta.
Jefferson Davis and the southern command hoped to drag out the war and deny Lincoln the election, and perhaps win at the ballot box what it was unable to win on the battlefield. Hanging in the balance was the faith of two nations.