Dover, Tennessee—The public is invited to join national park interpreters Saturday, October 26, as they share about field artillery used at the 1862 Battle of Fort Donelson. The demonstration will take place in the field just north of the Fort Donelson Visitor Center, at 120 Fort Donelson Park Road, Dover, and run from 11 am until 2 pm, and is free and open to the public.
This program will provide an overview of the artillery currently present on the park, and how they functioned. To demonstrate what they have learned, some attendees may even volunteer to participate in mock loading and firing exercises. For this program, there will not be actual artillery firing.
The armies of the Civil War consisted mostly of volunteers, often young men who grew up in cities, rural towns, or farms. Most new soldiers had likely never traveled very far from their homes, and a very few had experience with firing a cannon. How did they learn their jobs as cannoneers? How was artillery effectively used in this Civil War Campaign? Those are just a few of the answers that program participants might find.
Copies of the Fort Donelson Junior Ranger Handbook will be available at the program for youth. Upon completion of assigned pages, they may receive their Junior Ranger badge and patch from Rangers at the Stewart County Visitor Center.
In case of inclement weather, the program will be modified and moved to the nearby park pavilion. Please contact the Ranger staff for more information at 931-232-5706 x 0.
Updated information and a complete calendar of events may be found on the Fort Donelson National Battlefield Facebook page at www.facebook.com/fortdonelsonnps, or via the national park Web site at www.nps.gov/fodo.