Former New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines' appearance at the Atlanta History Center Sunday afternoon turned into a mini-reunion for Atlanta Journal-Constitution alums.
Raines discussed his recent book "Silent Cavalry: How Union Soldiers From Alabama Helped Sherman Burn Atlanta and Then Got Written Out of History," drawing a large crowd to the AHC's McElreath Hall on a beautiful Masters Sunday afternoon.
Former AJC journalists who warmly greeted each other at the event included former AJC Managing Editor Hank Klibanoff, now a non-fiction writing professor at Emory engaged in uncovering unsolved crimes against blacks in the Civil Rights Era.
Popular AJC film critic Eleanor Ringel, now writing reviews for the Saporta Report, stood in a long line as Raines signed copies of his book after the talk. Former AJC local reporter and editor Joe Earle also gave his regards to Raines, a Birmingham native who worked at The Atlanta Constitution before his career at The New York Times.
AJC attorney Peter Canfield, who rigorously defended the AJC in the Richard Jewel case and other successful lawsuits, also attended, as did former Washington Post Atlanta correspondent and CNN reporter Art Harris.
"Silent Cavalry" tells how Winston County in the North Alabama mountains opposed the state's joining the Confederacy in the Civil War. As Raines discloses, a regiment of Alabama soldiers from the area fought for the Union, eventually serving as Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's guard and the spear point of his army.
Raines uncovers how the First Alabama's history was suppressed by historians who pushed the "Lost Cause" myth of how the South lost the war.
Thanks to Raines, the First Alabama has joined the Civil War pantheon.
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