{"id":24384,"date":"2017-06-14T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=24384"},"modified":"2017-06-14T01:37:23","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T06:37:23","slug":"austin-peay-history-students-present-new-research-at-fort-defiance-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2017\/06\/14\/austin-peay-history-students-present-new-research-at-fort-defiance-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay History Students present new research at Fort Defiance event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-324279\" title=\"Austin Peay State University - APSU\" src=\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Austin-Peay-State-University-APSU.jpg\" alt=\"Austin Peay State University - APSU\" height=\"64\" width=\"250\"\/><strong>Clarksville, TN<\/strong> &#8211; Members of the Austin Peay State University History Club recently had the opportunity to present new research related to Fort Defiance at the historical site\u2019s newest event, titled \u201cFresh Research, New Discoveries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A partnership between APSU&#8217;s History Club, Phi Alpha Theta history honors society and Fort Defiance, and funded through&nbsp;a Student Academic Success Initiative grant from APSU faculty senate, \u201cFresh Research, New Discoveries\u201d saw Austin Peay students John Schuler and Jenny Brown explore the histories of African American men and women during the Civil War.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_385641\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/APSU-History-Students-present-new-research-at-Fort-Defiance.jpg\"  class=\"thickbox no_icon\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-385641\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-385641\" title=\"APSU History Club presented new research about Fort Defiance at \u201cFresh Research, New Discoveries\u201d event. (Austin Peay State University)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/APSU-History-Students-present-new-research-at-Fort-Defiance-480x270.jpg\" alt=\"APSU History Club presented new research about Fort Defiance at \u201cFresh Research, New Discoveries\u201d event. (Austin Peay State University)\" height=\"270\" width=\"480\"\/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-385641\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">APSU History Club presented new research about Fort Defiance at \u201cFresh Research, New Discoveries\u201d event. (Austin Peay State University)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!--more-->Schuler, a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran currently enrolled in APSU\u2019s Master of Arts in Military History program, presented findings related to an African-American man named Thomas McReynolds. A member of the 16<sup>th<\/sup> U.S. Colored Infantry during the Civil War, McReynolds joined the Union Army in Clarksville and survived the conflict.<\/p>\n<p>Schuler\u2019s research is focused on uncovering McReynolds\u2019 actions during and following the war, and the student-historian presented a rare photo of the soldier taken during his service as a part of his presentation.<\/p>\n<p>Brown\u2019s research focused on the experience of African-American men and women in so-called \u201ccontraband\u201d camps throughout Middle Tennessee. A term coined by Union soldiers during the early days of the war, \u201ccontraband\u201d referred to a Union policy of treating enslaved people as property confiscated from the Confederates. Brown\u2019s research explored life in these disease-ridden \u201ccontraband\u201d camps, where those confined to its walls understood the value of their hard labor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the interesting things Jenny notes is that Union officers noted that \u2018contrabands\u2019 demanded to be paid for work they did for the Union army up front,\u201d Dr. Kelly Jones, Austin Peay assistant history professor, said. \u201cThey knew what freedom meant and sought to define its terms. Jenny has helped us uncover that valuable story in her work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones said both research projects remain ongoing, and they hope to present more findings at the upcoming &#8220;Liberation and Reconstruction: Clarksville and Montgomery County, 1860-1880&#8221; symposium. Organized by Jones and Dr. Richard Gildrie, emeritus professor of history at APSU, as well as other emeritus professors and local historians, the October 28th event will be free and open to the public.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on the Austin Peay Department of History and Philosophy, visit&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apsu.edu\/history.\" >www.apsu.edu\/history.<\/a> To find out more about the Fort Defiance Interpretive Center, visit&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cityofclarksville.com\/index.aspx?page=161\" >www.cityofclarksville.com\/index.aspx?page=161<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clarksville, TN &#8211; Members of the Austin Peay State University History Club recently had the opportunity to present new research related to Fort Defiance at the historical site\u2019s newest event, titled \u201cFresh Research, New Discoveries.\u201d A partnership between APSU&#8217;s History Club, Phi Alpha Theta history honors society and Fort Defiance, and funded through&nbsp;a Student Academic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[509,23,6391,18531,7207,262,1485,825,13731,1482,5533,30324,21474,28024,413,4380,6574],"class_list":["post-24384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","tag-african-american","tag-apsu","tag-apsu-department-of-history-and-philosophy","tag-apsu-history-club","tag-apsu-students","tag-austin-peay-state-university","tag-civil-war","tag-clarksville-tn","tag-confederates","tag-fort-defiance","tag-fort-defiance-interpretive-center","tag-jenny-brown","tag-john-schuler","tag-kelly-jones","tag-middle-tennessee","tag-richard-gildrie","tag-union-army"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-6li","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24385,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24384\/revisions\/24385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}