Clarksville Civil War Roundtable

About this event

November 18th, 2026 – Our 243rd meeting. We continue our twenty second year!!!

The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, November 18th, 2026 in our new home Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1410 Golf Club Lane just off Madison Street. This is next to Mericourt Park Baseball Complex just east of the Montgomery County Government Complex. The meeting room is just inside the covered entry way.

This month’s program – “The Cheairs Family and Rippavilla”

Rippa Villa has been open to the public for barely thirty years, but the Cheairs family that lived there called it home for almost 120 years. Nathaniel Cheairs was an early settler in Tennessee while his son, Nat, became one of the wealthiest people who lived in Middle Tennessee. Nat's siblings were eventually spread across three states and when the Civil War came, he enlisted and served in the 3rd Tennessee Infantry. After fighting from Fort Donelson, where he was captured (and later exchanged), to the end of the war in North Carolina, Nat came home to a world in the throes of Reconstruction.

The Cheairs family lived through some of the most tumultuous periods of American history and were greatly shaped and impacted by them. American history is often jarring and divisive - Rippa Villa and the people who lived there experienced that personally. Their world and their home is best seen and understood through their eyes.

Our speaker this month is Eric Jacobson. A Minnesota native, and student of the Civil War for forty years, Eric lived in Arizona for over ten years. While there he, along with two other principals, started and ran a small business, which grew to over 150 employees by 2003. Eric left Arizona to pursue other interests and relocated to Middle Tennessee in 2005. He is the author of For Cause & For Country: A Study of the Affair at Spring Hill and the Battle of Franklin, published in March 2006 and is considered by some to be one of the most important books ever written about the 1864 Tennessee Campaign. His second book, The McGavock Confederate Cemetery, followed in April 2007 and his third book, Baptism of Fire, detailing the roles of three Federal regiments at the Battle of Franklin, was released in September 2011. His fourth book, which encompasses two volumes, is entitled: Rippa Villa and the Cheairs Family: The Old Union and Rippa Villa and the Cheairs Family: A Rebirth of Freedom. Vol. 1 was released in mid-2026, and Vol. 2 is slated for the fall of 2026. His sixth book, entitled The Life of George D. Wagner: Stand There and Fight Them, is also nearing completion. He is the Chief Executive Officer of The Battle of Franklin Trust, which manages the Carter House, Carnton, and Rippa Villa.

Eric has worked with preservation organizations such as the American Battlefield Trust, Franklin’s Charge, the American Battlefield Protection Program, the National Park Service, and Save The Franklin Battlefield for over 20 years to reclaim and preserve important sections of the Spring Hill and Franklin battlefields. He was also one of the driving forces behind the installation of dozens of Civil Wars Trails markers across Middle Tennessee. He has spoken to dozens of organizations around the country and contributed to The Civil War: The Untold Story, a documentary which covered the war in the Western Theatre. In recent years he was among those who worked with the City of Franklin on the Fuller Story project, focused on the African American experience during and after the Civil War. He recently worked with the Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative to install a statue of Thurgood Marshall in Columbia, Tennessee.

An engaging speaker, Eric lives in rural Maury County, Tennessee with his wife Nancy.