The Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meetings: Recent Episodes
Marc Kunis
The Civil War Round Table of Chicago present programming of interest to devotées of American Civil War history, support preservation of Civil War battle sites, and sponsor a very popular annual battlefield tour. Founded in 1940, The Civil War Round Table of Chicago was the very first of over 200 such Round Tables that now meet around the world. The Civil War Round Table of Chicago is dedicated to the study of all aspects of the American Civil War, bringing together those who wish to expand and share their knowledge, as we promote the interchange of ideas.
Benjamin Grierson's Union cavalry thrust through Mississippi is one of the most well-known operations of the Civil War. There were other simultaneous operations to distract Confederate attention from the real threat to Vicksburgposed by U. S. Grant's Army of the Tennessee, but Grierson's operation, mainly conducted with two Illinois cavalry regiments, has become the most famous, and for good reason. For 16 days (April 17 to May 2) Grierson led Confederate pursuers on a high-stakes chase through the entire state of Mississippi, entering the northern border with Tennessee and exiting its southern border with Louisiana.
The daily rides were long, the rest stops short, and the tension high. Ironically, the man who led the raid was a former music teacher who some say disliked horses.
Throughout, he displayed outstanding leadership and cunning, destroyed railroad tracks, burned trestles and bridges, freed slaves, and created as much damage and chaos as possible. Grierson's Raid broke a vital Confederate rail line at Newton Station that supplied Vicksburg and, perhaps most importantly, consumed the attentionof the Confederate high command. While Confederate Lt. Gen. John Pemberton at Vicksburg and otherSouthern leaders looked in the wrong directions, Grant moved his entire Army of the Tennessee across the Mississippi River below Vicksburg, spelling the doomof that city, the Confederate chances of holding the river, and perhaps the Confederacy itself.
Novelists have attempted to capture the large-than-life cavalry raid in the popular imagination, and Hollywood reproduced the daring cavalry action in The Horse Soldiers, a 1959 major motion picture starring John Wayne and William Holden. Although the film replicates the raid's drama and high-stakes gamble, cinematic license chipped away at its accuracy. Based upon years of research and presented in gripping, fast-paced prose, Timothy B. Smith's The Real Horse Soldiers: Benjamin Grierson's Epic 1863 Civil War Raid through Mississippi captures the high drama and tension of the 1863 horse soldiers in a modern,comprehensive, academic study. This talk, based on the book, will bring you along for the ride.
Timothy B. Smith (Ph.D. Mississippi State University, 2001) is a veteran of the National Park Service and currently teaches history at the University of Tennessee at Martin.In addition to numerous articles and essays, he is the author, editor, or co-editor of more than twenty books with several university and commercialpresses. His books have won numerous book awards, his trilogy on the American Civil War's Tennessee River campaign (Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, andCorinth) winning a total of nine book awards. He is currently finishing a five-volume study of the Vicksburg Campaign for the University Press of Kansas and a new study of Albert Sidney Johnston for LSU Press. He lives with his wifeKelly and daughters Mary Kate and Leah Grace in Adamsville, Tennessee.
In 1974, The Civil War Round Table of Chicago established the Nevins-Freeman Award, and bestows it annually on an individual whose advancement of American Civil Warscholarship and support for the Round Table movement warrant special recognition. The award itself is designed as a generous financial donation to a historical preservation project chosen by the recipient. This award isnamed for two men whose legacies have come to be synonymous with the Civil War era: Historians Allan Nevins and Douglas Southall Freeman.
A list of the awardees can be viewed on the Chicago CWRT website, at https://chicagocwrt.org/anfa.html.\
The Nevins-FreemanAward
Lynn and Julianne Herman on"The Allegheny Arsenal Explosion"
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The Allegheny Arsenal, near Pittsburgh, producedammunition for the Union army. By 1862 the workersturned out some 128,000 cartridges daily by workingsix days a week, twelve hours a day. The arsenalemployed one hundred fifty-six ladies and girls. In thesummer of 1861, the arsenal had dismissed over onehundred young boys when they discovered theircareless behavior with matches and tobacco. Theydiscovered replacing the boys with girls was just asefficient and by 1862 had employed many young girlsand women using their small hands and fingers topack the cartridges at a rapid rate. Although they allare aware of the danger working with black powder,the chief ingredient in making the ammunition, they continue on filling the cartridges asfast as possible depending on the supervisors to keep them safe.On September 17, 1862 (the day of the Battle of Antietam), a spark from a horse's shoeignited that powder. The resulting explosion and fire saw 78 workers lose their lives, 72of whom were women. The Allegheny Arsenal explosion was the worst civilian disasterduring the Civil War.Julianne Herman worked for 45 years as a Registered Nurse in the operating room.She has long been drawn to the study of historical events, both nationally and 2worldwide. Her interest in the Civil War increased during the 125th Anniversarycommemorations, and she began reenacting and studying various aspects of the war.As a civilian reenactor (with her husband Lynn), she became increasingly interested inwomen's roles during that time period, including the seemingly unlikely role of womenworking in a military arsenal. She is secretary of the Central PA CWRT.
- Wilson Greene on “Opening the Cracker Line and Keeping it Open: The Decisive Battles of the Chattanooga Campaign”
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Following the battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, General William S. Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland retreated into Chattanooga. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee surrounded the city on three sides and laid a quasi-siege for more than a month. Supplies for the Union forces gradually dwindled, reaching crisis level by the third week of October. Rosecrans, who seemed incapable of lifting the siege, gave way to Ulysses S. Grant, who approved a daring plan to open a new line of supply. That plan succeeded on October 27, opening what the Federal soldiers called the "Cracker Line." The Confederates' effort to redeem the situation resulted in one of the Civil War's rare night battles near a railroad junction called Wauhatchie. Will Greene will argue that these two relatively minor actions decided the outcome of the campaign for Chattanooga and that the famous battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge should have never occurred. A. Wilson "Will" Greene is a native Chicagoan who grew up in Western Springs and Wheaton. Following a sixteen-year career with the National Park Service, Greene became the first executive director of the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, now the American Battlefield Trust. He then became the founding director of Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier. Greene is the author of six books and a dozen published articles and essays dealing with the Civil War. His current project with the University of North Carolina Press is a three-volume history of the Petersburg Campaign. The first volume, A Campaign of Giants, was published in 2018 and Volume 2 is due out early in 2025. Greene was the recipient of the Nevins-Freeman Award in 2012. Greene now lives in Walden, Tennessee, hard by the Anderson Pike, about which he will speak at our meeting.
CWRT Feb 2024
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Often small individual encounters in history, experienced by common people like us, caught in the maelstrom of events, hold larger truths. Sometimes these experiences have meaning—not only for those who experience them, but for us in today’s world. This program follows twelve members of the 17th Connecticut Regiment through the three-day Battle of Gettysburg and beyond in July 1863. It focuses on the stories of the wounded, the caregivers, and the honored dead. These men fought for their lives, lost friends, and suffered themselves at Gettysburg. Their sacrifices are still with us today and from them we inherited great social and medical advances. Because of their sacrifices we began to understand the hidden costs of war, and that not all wounds are visible. The stories of these twelve citizen soldiers highlight the meaning that their lives and experiences have for our generation today: socially, medically, and psychologically. These are their stories.
Carolyn Ivanoff is a retired high school administrator and independent historian. She writes and speaks frequently on American history at local, state, and national venues. In 2003, Carolyn was named Civil War Trust’s Teacher of the Year. We Fought at 2
Gettysburg is her first book. It follows the 17th Connecticut Regiment through the Gettysburg Campaign and beyond in June and July of 1863.
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The Union XII Corps was formed in June 1862. The corps, which joined the Army of the Potomac only a week before Antietam was small, numbering just over 7,600 men. Easily overlooked, Army of the Potomac leadership and historians since have largely glossed over this corps’ contribution at Antietam. Nevertheless, this small corps ended Confederate attacks into the Miller Cornfield and East Woods, successfully defended the Dunker Church Plateau from Confederate assaults, and captured the West Woods, which had been the goal on the Federal right all morning. Chris Bryan will provide a brief overview of the period from the Battle of Cedar Mountain until the corps’ entry into Maryland, including its condition resulting from this period. The talk will then examine the XII Corps’ participation in the Maryland Campaign and its fighting at Antietam, including some new findings discovered through recent archival research.
M. Chris Bryan’s Cedar Mountain to Antietam: A Civil War Campaign History of the Union XII Corps, July –September 1862 begins with the formation of this often-luckless command as the II Corps in Maj. Gen. John Pope’s Army of Virginia on June 26, 1862. Bryan explains in meticulous detail how the corps endured a bloody and demoralizing loss after coming within a whisker of defeating Maj. Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson at Cedar Mountain on August 9; suffered through the hardships of Pope’s campaign before and after the Battle of Second Manassas; and triumphed after entering Maryland and joining the reorganized Army of the Potomac. The men of this small corps earned a solid reputation in the Army of the Potomac at Antietam that would only grow during the battles of 1863.
Chris Bryan is a native of Greencastle, Pennsylvania. He earned a B.S. in History from the United States Naval Academy, an M.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Annapolis, and a Masters in Historic Preservation from the University of Maryland, College Park, with a focus on architectural investigations of Chesapeake region antebellum domestic and agricultural outbuildings. The former Naval Aviator works as a project manager in Southern Maryland. Cedar Mountain to Antietam is his first book.
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Patrick Brennan, a long-time student of the Civil War and published author, has teamed up with his technology-astute daughter Dylan Brennan to bring the largest Civil War battle to life in the remarkable 2-volume study: Gettysburg in Color. Volume 1 covers Brandy Station to the Peach Orchard, and Volume 2 covers The Wheatfield to Falling Waters. Rather than guess or dabble with the colors, the Brennans used an artificial intelligence-based computerized color identifier to determine the precise color of uniforms, flesh, hair, equipment, terrain, houses, and much more. The result is a monumental full-color study of the important three-day battle that brings the men, the landscape, and the action into the 21st Century. The deep colorization of battle-related woodcuts, for example, reveals a plethora of details that have passed generations of eyes unseen. The photos of the soldiers and their officers look as if they were taken yesterday. 2
The use of this modern technology shines a light on one Gettysburg photographic mystery in particular. Colorizing some of the battle's "death" images revealed the presence of Union and Confederate dead that may help determine the previously unknown location of the photographs. That may also be a "first" when it comes to Civil War photography. Pat Brennan is the author of Secessionville: Assault on Charleston (1996), To Die Game: General J. E. B. Stuart, CSA (1998), and more than twenty articles for a variety of Civil War magazines and journals. Pat is on the Editorial Advisory Board for The Civil War Monitor and his work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune. He has lectured around the country on the Civil War and Bob Dylan. Dylan Brennan works on the broadcast video production team at Tasty Trade, a real time, online financial network based in Chicago.
Scott Mingus on “Texans at Chickamauga”
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Although the Civil War’s second-largest battle in terms of casualties, Chickamauga has had far fewer books written about it than the thousands of books penned about the war’s bloodiest battle, Gettysburg. What has been remarkable has been the dearth of books about specific brigades, regiments, or state troops at Chickamauga, unlike Gettysburg which has a plethora of specialty books. Scott Mingus’s and Joe Owen’s Unceasing Fury: Texans at the Battle of Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863, is the first full-length book to examine in detail the role of troops from the Lone Star State.
Chickamauga was deemed as “the soldiers’ battle” because of the perception in the ranks of a lack of direct involvement of senior-level leadership. More than 4,400 of these soldiers were from the state of Texas. One out of every four of the Lone Star boys who fought at Chickamauga fell there. The surviving Texans gave us vivid descriptions of battle action, the anguish of losing friends, the pain and loneliness of being so far away from home, and their often-colorful opinions of their generals.
Texans fought in almost every major sector of the sprawling Chickamauga battlefield, from the first attacks on September 18 on the bridges spanning the creek to the final attack on Snodgrass Hill on the third day of fighting. Ultimately, Union mistakes led to a tactical Confederate victory, one that was marred by the strategic mistake of not aggressively pursuing the retreating Federals and seizing the vital transportation hub at Chattanooga.
York County, PA resident Scott Mingus is a retired scientist and executive in the global specialty paper industry. The Ohio native graduated from Miami University. He has written more than 30 Civil War and Underground Railroad books and numerous articles for Gettysburg Magazine and other historical journals. The Gettysburg Civil War Round Table recently presented Scott and co-author Eric Wittenberg with the 2023 Bachelder-Coddington Award for the best
Ernest Dollar on “Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in theCivil War”For More Info: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.ORGIn the popular memory of the Civil War, its end came withhandshakes between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S.Grant in Virginia. But the war was not over. There was alarger, and arguably, more important surrender yet totake place in North Carolina. Yet this story occupies littlespace in the vast annals of Civil War literature.Reexamining the war's final days through the lens ofmodern science reveals why.This final campaign of the Civil War began on April 10,1865, a day after the surrender at Appomattox CourtHouse. Over 120,000 Union and Confederate soldiers cutacross North Carolina's heartland bringing war with them.It was the final march of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman'seffort to destroy Southern ability and moral stamina to make war. His unstoppable Union army faced the demoralized, but still dangerous, Confederate Army of Tennessee under Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. Adding to the chaos of the campaign were thousands ofdistraught and desperate paroled Rebels streaming south from Virginia. The collision of these groups formed a perfect storm for grief-stricken civilians caught in the middle, struggling to survive amidst their collapsing worlds.Ernest Dollar will explore the psychological experience of these soldiers and civilians caught this chaotic time that's captured in his new book, Hearts Torn Asunder: Trauma in the Civil War's Final Campaign in North Carolina. Using an extensive collection of letters, diaries, and accounts, Dollar demonstrates the depths to which war hurt people by the spring of 1865. Hearts Torn Asunder recounts their experience through a modernunderstanding of trauma injuries.Durham, North Carolina native Ernest A. Dollar Jr. graduated from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro with B.A. in History and B.F.A. in Design in 1993 and M.A. in Public History from North Carolina State in 2006. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve/North Carolina National Guard from 1993-1999. Ernest has worked in several historic parks in both North and South Carolina, including as executive director of the Orange County Historical Museum, Preservation Chapel Hill. He currently serves as thedirector of the City of Raleigh Museum and Dr. M. T. Pope House Museum.
Mark Zimmerman on “The Brutal Retreat from Nashville 1864”
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Mark Zimmerman, a member of the Nashville Civil War Round Table, will present an hour-long slideshow, The Brutal Retreat from Nashville 1864, based on his self-published book, Mud, Blood and Cold Steel. The presentation details the 10-day, 100-mile retreat by John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee from Compton's Hill in Nashville to the Tennessee River in northern Alabama. The Confederates were pursued by the infantry and cavalry of George Henry Thomas, including the cavalry of James Harrison Wilson, which was armed with repeating rifles. The harrowing retreat was conducted in the dead of winter through rugged and inhospitable terrain. Mark is a retired newspaperman who belongs to numerous Civil War and historic preservation organizations. He has self-published eight non-fiction books, including four on "the late unpleasantness." His latest book, Fortress Nashville, was named a Top Ten Book of 2022 by Civil War Books & Authors. He is also a Tennessee Squire with modest landholdings in Lynchburg. He was born and raised in Rockford, the gritty city at the top of Illinois, and spent seven years as a Packers fan in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He is also an avid fan of the University of Tennessee Volunteers. He has led tours of historic sites in Nashville and has presented at Shiloh National Military Park, Johnsonville State Historic Park, Fort Defiance Interpretive Center, and Fort Negley Interpretive Center.
Sean Michael Chick on “General P. G. T. Beauregard”For more information: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.OrgIn April, 1861, Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard shot into fame as the Confederate commander who commanded the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Often given high-level commands thereafter, a combination of ill-health, and disagreements with President Davis, limited his service thereafter, though he played a key role in the defense of both Charleston and Petersburg. This month, we will enjoy a presentation on this enigmatic and colorful general, a man whom his many admirers thought was a potential Napoleon. Few Civil War generals attracted as much debate and controversy as Beauregard. P. G. T. combined brilliance and charisma with arrogance and histrionics, the latter often alienating those he had to deal with. Sean Michael Chick graduated from the University of New Orleans with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Communications, and from Southeastern Louisiana University with a Master of Arts in History. He currently works in New Orleans, leading historic tours of his hometown and helping residents and visitors appreciate the city's past. He is also a board game designer, concentrating on the period of Western warfare from 1685-1866. His publications include The Battle of Petersburg, June 15-18, 1864 (Potomac Books, 2015) and Grant's Left Hook: The Bermuda Hundred Campaign, May 5-June 7, 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2021). His Dreams of Victory: General P.G.T. Beauregard in the Civil War (Savas Beatie, 2022) is the basis for this talk.
Dwight Hughes on “Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The USS Monitor and the Battle of Hampton Roads”
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The USS Monitor was an ingenious but hurried response to both the imminent threat of the Confederate ironclad, CSS Virginia (ex USS Merrimack), and to the growing prospect of international intervention backed by powerful British or French seagoing ironclads. The United States had no defenses against either menace. This presentation takes Monitor from her inception in the mind of her brilliant inventor through the dramatic first clash of ironclads at Hampton Roads. Dwight Hughes is a public historian, author, and speaker in Civil War naval history. Dwight graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1967 with a major in History and Government. He served twenty years as a Navy surface warfare officer on most of the world's oceans in ships ranging from destroyer to aircraft carrier and with river forces in Vietnam (Bronze Star for Meritorious Service, Purple Heart). Dwight is a contributing author at the Emerging Civil War blog and author of: A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (Naval Institute Press, 2015), and Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862 (Savas Beatie, 2021) for the award-winning Emerging Civil War series. His new book as editor and contributor, The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War (Savas Beatie), is due out in April 2023.
Charles Knight on “Robert E. Lee”
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Douglas S. Freeman's Pulitzer Prize-winning three-volume biography of Robert E. Lee is a masterful reconstruction of the man's life. So exhaustive was Freeman's research that he often boasted he could account for every hour of Lee's life from West Point until his death. Freeman's Lee is thorough, but it isn't THAT thorough. Often neglected in Freeman's Lee and other studies of the general or of his various battles and campaigns is what Lee was doing when he wasn't in the spotlight. Charles Knight's new From Arlington to Appomattox: Robert E. Lee's Civil War Day by Day, 1861-1865 recreates those four years of Lee's life--at least as much as is possible at 150+ years distance. It is often forgotten that in addition to his duties as a general, Lee was still a husband, father, and friend. He lost a daughter, sister, two grandchildren, daughter-in-law, and his home during the war. In2 this presentation Knight shares some of the results of years of research into Lee's actions during the war years; previously unknown sources, inconsistencies that confused Freeman and dozens of other historians over the years, memorable anecdotes of Lee's daily life, and other historical "nuggets" that came to light in his research. Charles Knight is native of Richmond, VA, where he developed a love of history at an early age. He has worked at museums and historic sites for more than 20 years in Virginia, Arizona, and North Carolina, and has given historical presentations to audiences across the country. He is the author of Valley Thunder: The Battle of New Market (Savas Beatie, 2010), From Arlington to Appomattox: Robert E. Lee's Civil War Day by Day (Savas Beatie, 2021), as well as numerous magazine and journal articles, and was a historical advisor on the 2014 film Field of Lost Shoes, about the Battle of New Market. Knight is currently working on a biography of Confederate general and railroad magnate William Mahone; a history of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's Honor Guard company; and editing the memoirs and papers of Gen. R.E. Lee's aide Charles Venable. Knight is the curator of military history at the NC Museum of History in Raleigh and resides in Holly Springs, NC, with his wife and children.
Robert Girardi on
“Union Prisoners of War at Camp Douglas”
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Douglas, located on the south side of Chicago, was Illinois' largest Civil War training camp. More than 40,000 volunteers mustered here. In February 1862, the camp was converted to accommodate Confederate Prisoners of war. About 24,000 Confederates were held there during the war, of which 6,000 died. Their story is well-told. Yet lesser known is the story of the thousands of Union POWs who were held in the camp while awaiting exchange. After the surrender of Harpers Ferry in September 1862, the captured Union soldiers were interred in parole camps. More than 8,000 of these were sent to Camp Douglas. These soldiers occupied barracks recently vacated by Confederate prisoners and were subjected to the same poor sanitary conditions and privations. Their uncertain future and lack of understanding 2
of their status led to a breakdown in discipline. This is an account of their troublesome experiences in Chicago. Robert I. Girardi has a Masters Degree in Public History from Loyola University. He is a lifelong student of the American Civil War and has studied all aspects of the conflict. He is a past president of the Chicago CWRT and is the author or editor of nine books, and numerous articles and book reviews. He was a board member of the Illinois State Historical Society and was guest editor for the 2011-2014 Sesquicentennial of the Civil War issues of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. His most recent article, "Reconsidering Major General Gouverneur K. Warren," appeared in the July 2020 issue of North and South Magazine. He is currently working on a military biography of Warren.
Chicago Civil War Round Table Meeting for December 2022: Garry Adelman on “Midwest Civil War Photo Extravaganza”
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Join American Battlefield Trust Chief Historian Garry Adelman for a lively photography presentation covering all manner of Midwestern events, people, and places. While the Midwest proper hosted a limited number of battles and campaigns, the Midwest states hosted hospitals, supply deports, manufacturing hubs, prisons, camps, railroads, and more! Midwesterners themselves played an outsized role in the conflict ... and where they went, so went photographers capturing images on glass and metal for a public hungry for this relatively new technology! Combining then-and-now photographs, details, maps, and other media, Mr. Adelman will tell the story of the Civil War Midwest mainly through the revolutionary wet-plate photography process, the truly unique individuals involved in the birth of photojournalism and more. From Wilson's Creek to Johnson's Island, from Wood Lake to Cairo, Mine Creek, Milwaukee, Crown Point, Keokuk, Ann Arbor, and the Wigwam, come to understand the 1860s Midwest in a manner available nowhere else!
A graduate of Michigan State University and Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, Garry Adelman is the award-winning author, co-author, or editor of 20 books and 50 Civil War articles. He is the vice president of the Center for Civil War Photography and has been a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg for 27 years. He has conceived and drafted the text for wayside exhibits at ten battlefields, has given thousands of battlefield tours at more than 70 American Revolution and Civil War sites, and has lectured at hundreds of locations across the country including the National Archives, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. He has appeared as a speaker on the BBC, C-Span, Pennsylvania Cable Network, American Heroes Channel, and on HISTORY where he was a chief consultant and talking head on the Emmy Award-winning show Gettysburg (2011), Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color (2015), and Grant (2020). He works full time as Chief Historian at the American Battlefield Trust.
Civil War Round table of Chicago November 2022 Meeting. The Nevins-Freeman Address: Mary Abroe on “Historic Preservation and Civil War Battlefields: An American Story”
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Founded by Congress in August 1890, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park is our first federal battlefield park. Later that same month, passage of legislation that set aside funding for preserving battle lines and buying land to mark troop positions provided the basis for what became Antietam National Battlefield Site. Rounding out the five "granddaddies" that constitute the nucleus of our national battlefield park network are Shiloh (1894), Gettysburg (1895), and Vicksburg (1899). At a time when there was no National Park Service as we know it and only a few other "national parks"--like Yellowstone and Yosemite, both of which were western wilderness parks--the Civil War preserves of the 1890s set the precedent for all national historical parks (of whatever designation) going forward. As a result, those turn-of-the-century military establishments are among the premier historical properties of the entire National Park System. Additional Civil War sites joined their predecessors over the next 120-plus years, but whether we consider Chickamauga or Mill Springs (KY)--in 2020 the most recent addition to the System--the immediate thought for many, if not most, is "killing fields." And so they were. But, over time, as men and women lived, worked, and remembered on those grounds, layers of human motives and actions also shaped them. In that way, preserved battlefields have plenty to reveal about Americans' understanding of the Civil War and their resulting urge to preserve its sites as memorials, patriotic symbols, tourist destinations, documentary evidence, and outdoor classrooms. The battlefields also are full of stories about local communities, whose people, through no choice of their own, became witnesses to history and neighbors of the places where it happened. This presentation focuses on what modern Civil War parks tell us about their meaning and preservation at the hands of successive generations of Americans, ourselves included--those who, over the decades between the 1890s and the early twenty-first century, have continued to shape those landscapes.
Mary Abroe holds a BA in history from St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana and a PhD from Loyola University Chicago. She is retired from teaching at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, Illinois. Dr. Abroe is vice chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Battlefield Trust and a director of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation. She also is past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago.
Bruce Allardice on "Myths and Mysteries of the CSS Hunley"
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The Confederate submarine Hunley, the first submarine to ever sink an enemy warship, has fascinated us ever since its mysterious disappearance in 1864. Movies have been made dramatizing its almost suicidal nature and its tragic end. Myths and legends have grown up about it. The Hunley was re-discovered in 1995 off Charleston Harbor, and rescued from the bottom of the sea, to sit today in a museum in Charleston. Yet over a decade after its rescue, questions still linger about the submarine, how it operated, why it was lost, what happened to the crew. In this presentation, Professor Allardice will relate the latest discoveries, discoveries that answer at least some of the mysteries surrounding the vessel. Bruce S. Allardice is a longtime (35 years) (has it really been that long?) member and past president of the Chicago CWRT. Professor Allardice teaches European and American History, as well as Political Science, at South Suburban College. He has authored, or co-authored, 7 books, and numerous articles, on the Civil War and on Baseball history. He is past president of the Northern Illinois Civil War Round Table, and a current member of five Chicago-area CWRTs.
CWRT June 2022 Meeting: Lauren Szady on "Politicians in Petticoats: The Women of the Abolitionist Movement"
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While not originally admitted to the earliest abolitionist societies, women were always an important part of the movement. Some names, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Sojourner Truth have been remembered by history as influential ladies in the anti-slavery movement, both with their words and actions. However, women from all walks of life--rich and poor, black and white, northern and southern--spoke up about this issue that started out as a male political opinion but turned into a hotly contested social matter for all. Their opinions were not without contest though. Many were seen as "stirring up trouble on the slavery issue" while others divided groups by breaking with convention. Throughout women's history, only the most vocal or "politically correct" women are remembered as having an influence but during the abolitionist movement, many women took a stand and raised their voices to help bring light to those with even less rights than they had. On June 10th, Lauren Szady will explore some of these women and how their voices changed the course of the anti-slavery movement. Lauren Szady is a museum professional with over 10-years of experience in education at several small to mid-size organizations over the course of her career. She earned a bachelor's degree with honors in Public History from DePaul University and a master's degree in Museum Studies through Johns Hopkins University. In true historian style, the earliest written evidence that Lauren has about her chosen career is from when she was in 3rd grade, announcing that she wanted to be a reenactor when she grew up. Her passion for museum education is a step forward in this childhood dream--while also proving her mother wrong that historical
https://youtu.be/8XPN3ENJvTU
James Pula on "The Eleventh Corps at Gettysburg: a Reappraisal"
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The twin disasters that befell the XI Corps at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg have cast a long shadow over the memory of the brave men who served and suffered in that unit. James Pula focuses on commanders' decisions and on the experience of common soldiers in telling a more balanced tale. Pula will maintain that, far from being the “Flying Dutchmen” of popular belief, the men of the XI Corps were good soldiers unworthy of the stigma that has haunted them to this day. James S. Pula is a professor of history at Purdue University North Central. He was twice awarded the Polish American Historical Association's prestigious Oskar Halecki Prize for outstanding books on Polonia as well as the Mieczyslaw Haiman Award for contributions to the study of Polonia. His Civil War books include For Liberty and Justice: A Biography of Brigadier General Wlodzimierz B. Krzyzanowski, 1824-1887; The Sigel Regiment: A History of the Twenty-Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers; and Under the Crescent Moon: With the XI Corps in the Civil War. He is the past editor of Gettysburg Magazine.
CWRT April 2022 Meeting: Jeffrey Hunt on Meade and Lee at Rappahannock Station and Mine Run"
For more info visit: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.ORG
The Civil War in the Eastern Theater during the late summer and fall of 1863 was anything but inconsequential. Generals Meade and Lee continued where they had left off, executing daring marches while boldly maneuvering the chess pieces of war in an effort to gain decisive strategic and tactical advantage. Cavalry actions crisscrossed the rolling landscape; bloody battle revealed to both sides the command deficiencies left in the wake of Gettysburg. It was the first and only time in the war Meade exercised control of the Army of the Potomac on his own terms. That fall, Meade launched a risky offensive to carry Lee’s Rappahannock defenses and bring on a decisive battle. The dramatic fighting included a stunning Federal triumph at Rappahannock Station—which destroyed two entire Confederate brigades—that gave Meade the upper hand and the initiative in his deadly duel with Lee, who retreated south to a new position behind the Rapidan River. The inconclusive Mine Run Campaign followed. Jeffrey William Hunt is Director of the Texas Military Forces Museum, the official museum of the Texas National Guard, located at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas, and is an Adjunct Professor of History at Austin Community College, where he has taught since 1988. Prior to taking the post at the Texas Military Forces Museum, he was the Curator of Collections and Director of the Living History Program at the Admiral Nimitz National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas for 11 years. He holds a Master's Degree in History from the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Hunt’s writing credits include his book, The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch, and his three volumes on the aftermath of the Gettysburg Campaign, Meade and Lee After Gettysburg: From Falling Waters to Culpeper Court House, Meade and Lee at Bristoe Station, and his latest book, Meade and Lee at Rappahannock Station.
Mark Laubacher on "The U.S.S. Red Rover: Hospital of Firsts"
For More information visit WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org
To adequately treat illness and trauma afflicted upon military personnel during the US Civil War, a true military hospital ship for use on internal waterways was built. Originally, USS Red Rover was a hospital ship for the Union Army's Western Gunboat Flotilla operating on the Mississippi River. Red Rover would go on to become the first US Naval hospital ship in late December 1862. This was a hospital of many firsts, commencing with females who served as nurses aboard Red Rover. They were paid crew members, working in various capacities comprised of African Americans and a group Sisters of the Holy Cross of St. Mary from Notre Dame in Indiana. Ultimately, 8 African American women were on the Navy payroll by the end of the war, including Ann Stokes, who would eventually earn the title of "nurse," and go on to draw a pension from the Federal government following the war. The success of the Red Rover was a direct result of the contribution of civilian women working as nurses aboard the vessel. From June 11, 1862, to March 31, 1865, Red Rover admitted 1697 patients and touted a survival rate of over 90%. The injuries and illnesses of the sailors of the gunboats ran a broad spectrum. Such women pioneers would ultimately lead to the creation of the US Navy Nurse Corps in 1908.
Mark Laubacher is an RN and paramedic working as a Certified Specialist in Poison Information since 1992 at the Central Ohio Poison Center located at Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. Prior to this, he was a full-time staff nurse at Children's Emergency Department for 4 years. He received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Capital University in 1989. He is also currently a faculty member for Grant Medical Center Paramedic Program in Columbus, Ohio. Having delivered over 500 presentations, he routinely presents at the state and national levels on various topics of toxicological emergencies.
Ann Durkin Keating talked to the Chicago Civil War Round Table on February 11th on Juliette Kinzie, the Civil War, and the Making of Chicago
For more information: WWW. ChicagoCWRT.Org
After spending the 1832 Black Hawk War at Portage, Wisconsin, Juliette settled with her husband, John H. Kinzie at Chicago, where they were central figures in the city's early political, social and religious life. The family witnessed the arrival of the first railroad and the opening of the canal. John was an enthusiastic Whig and then an early supporter of the Republican Party alongside Abraham Lincoln. But the Kinzie family was split by the Civil War. Juliette's husband and three sons served in the Union Army, while her son-in-law was an officer in the Confederacy. Juliette kept in contact with her daughter who lived in Savannah Georgia through letters. This presentation will explore her experiences with a war that fundamentally split her family. Ann Durkin Keating is Toenniges Professor of History at North Central College in Naperville where she has taught for more than 30 years. She is the co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Chicago (2004) and is the author of several books on Chicago history, including most recently The World of Juliette Kinzie: Chicago Before the Fire (2019).
CWRT Meeting Jan 2022: Rob Girardi on "General John E. Smith, Galena’s Forgotten General"
For more info: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org
Galena Illinois boasts that it sent nine generals to the Civil War, the most famous of whom is Ulysses S. Grant. Many cannot name the other eight generals, but in addition to Ely S. Parker, Jasper Maltby and John Duer, there were two John Smith's. John Corson Smith fought in most of the major battles of the Army of the Cumberland, but this talk focuses on John Eugene Smith. Our Smith operated a silver shop on Main Street in Galena near the Rawlins law office and the Grant Tannery. John E. Smith befriended U.S. Grant and was instrumental in restoring Grant to the army. He is the player behind the scenes in many well-known events of the war and is perhaps the most important unknown general of the war. Robert I. Girardi has a master’s degree in Public History from Loyola University of Chicago. He is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago, a fellow of the Company of Military Historians, and is on the Board of Directors of the Illinois State Historical Society. He is a popular speaker and consultant on all aspects of the American Civil War. He has written or edited many books on the American Civil War, including The Military Memoirs of General John Pope, Campaigning with Uncle Billy, The Civil War Memoirs of Sgt. Lyman
Dennis Doyle on "Illinois Regiments at Gettysburg"
December 12th, 2021
During the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), there were three Illinois Regiments that served in the Army of Potomac. Those regiments were the 8th and 12th Illinois Cavalry and the 82nd Infantry Regiment, and a total of 1,027 men served during the Battle of Gettysburg. The three Illinois regiments suffered nine men killed during the battle, thirty-four men were wounded and ninety-six men were either missing or captured during the battle. The total strength of the Army of Potomac was estimated at 90,000 men and although Illinois contributed a small number to the Army of Potomac, they served with distinction and devotion during the three-day battle. Both the 8th and 12th Illinois Cavalry would serve well on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, as Lt. Marcellus Jones would fire the first shot of the battle on the morning of July 1. The two regiments would later retreat through Gettysburg and protected the Army of Potomac's left flank on Cemetery Hill on the evening of July 1 and the morning of July 2. Also present was the 82nd Illinois Regiment, which was comprised of mostly German-born soldiers and many who were recruited from Chicago. Under the overall command of Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, the 82nd Illinois Regiment would serve in the 11th Corp. On Dec. 12th Professor Dennis Doyle will present his thoughts on the Illinois Regiments at Gettysburg. Dennis Doyle earned his BA from Colorado State University and his MA in American History from American Public University. Since 1999 he has taught History and Sociology at Joliet Jr. College, in Joliet Illinois. Professor Doyle is President of the South Suburban Civil War Round Table, and Treasurer of the Chicago CWRT. A former college football player, he is a long time college and high school football referee.
Nevins-Freeman Address: Tom Clemens on General Joseph K. F. Mansfield
For More Info: www.ChicagoCWRT.org
The Chicago Civil War Round Table's Nevins-Freeman Award is intended to honor those who advance Civil War scholarship and the Round Table movement. Past winners have included Bruce Catton, Gary Gallagher, Bud Robertson and James McPherson. This year we honor Tom Clemens, a man who through his writings and battlefield tours has done so much to illuminate the Antietam Campaign, On October 12th Tom Clemens' Nevins-Freeman address will explore General Joseph K. F. Mansfield's life, including his all-too-brief (2 days) tenure as commander of the XII Corps. What most Civil War enthusiasts know about Joseph K. F. Mansfield, if they know anything at all, is that he was a Union corps commander who was killed at Antietam. While that is true, it was only the end of his 40 plus years of service in the U.S. Army. Often dismissed as a non-combatant through most of his career, he actually was involved in several vital aspects in the early part of the Civil War. The facts are that he was he was anything but a "staff puke," as Ed Bearss once dismissed him on a tour not many years ago. Dr. Thomas G. Clemens received his Doctorate in History Education from George Mason University, where he studied under noted Civil War historian Dr. Joseph L. Harsh. After a 34 year career at Hagerstown Community College, he retired as Professor Emeritus in 2012. He edited and annotated General Ezra A. Carman's manuscript, the Maryland Campaign of September 1862, in addition to numerous articles and several monographs, including one on Gen. Joseph K. F. Mansfield. Tom is a founding member and current president of Save Historic Antietam Foundation Inc., a non-profit historic preservation organization and an NPS-certified Antietam Battlefield Guide.
David Dixon on "The American Civil War: A Radical, International Revolution"
For more info: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org
On October 8th historian David Dixon will talk about an aspect of the Civil War not often discussed--”the role of foreign, German transplants”--based on the life of one of those immigrants, August Willich. Dixon's latest book, Radical Warrior: August Willich's Journey from German Revolutionary to Union General (on which this talk is based) is the biography of a Prussian army officer who renounced his nobility and joined in the failed European revolutions of 1848. He emigrated to America, edited a daily labor newspaper in Cincinnati, and became one of the most accomplished generals in the Union Army. This story sheds new light on the contributions of 200,000 German-Americans who fought for the Union in the Civil War. In an age of global social, economic, and political upheaval, transatlantic radicals helped affect America's second great revolution. For many recent immigrants, the nature and implications of that revolution turned not on Lincoln's relatively conservative goal of maintaining the national Union, but on issues of social justice, including slavery, free labor, and popular self-government. The Civil War was not simply a war to end sectional divides, but to restore the soul of the nation, revive the hopes of democrats worldwide, and defend human rights. David Dixon earned his M.A. in history from the University of Massachusetts in 2003. His first book, The Lost Gettysburg Address, told the unusual life story of Texas slaveholder Charles Anderson, whose speech followed Lincoln's at Gettysburg, but was never published. It turned up 140 years later in a cardboard box in Wyoming. David has presented to more than sixty Civil War Round Tables from coast to coast. He hosts B-List History, a website that features obscure characters and their compelling stories at www.davidtdixon.com. David's latest book, published by the University of Tennessee Press, is the biography of German revolutionary and Union General August Willich. His current project is a biography that highlights the role of emotions in Southern allegiance in the Civil War.
Eric Wittenberg on "Seceding from Secession: The Creation of West Virginia"
for more info: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org
“West Virginia was the child of the storm," concluded early Mountaineer historian and Civil War veteran, Maj. Theodore F. Lang. The northwestern third of the Commonwealth of Virginia finally broke away in 1863 to form the Union's 35th state. In his new book, Seceding from Secession: The Civil War, Politics, and the Creation of West Virginia, author Eric J. Wittenberg chronicles those events in an unprecedented study of the social, legal, military, and political factors that converged to bring about the birth of West Virginia. President Abraham Lincoln, an astute lawyer in his own right, played a critical role in birthing the new state. The book is an indispensable source for everyone interested in understanding the convergence of military, political, social, and legal events that brought about the birth of the state of West Virginia Eric J. Wittenberg is an award-winning historian, blogger, speaker, and tour guide. His specialty is Civil War cavalry operations, and much of his work has focused on the Gettysburg Campaign. He is the author of 18 published books on the Civil War and more than three dozen articles that have appeared in various national magazines. He is also deeply involved in battlefield preservation work and often assists the Civil War Trust with its efforts, and is also a member of the Governor of Ohio's Advisory Commission on the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War. He is a native of southeastern Pennsylvania and was educated at Dickinson College and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is an attorney in private practice. He and his wife Susan and their three golden retrievers reside in Columbus, Ohio.
A Wilson Green on"We Have Done all that is Possible and Must be Resigned: The First Petersburg Offensive"
For more information: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org
The epic contest between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee wound its way from the Rapidan River to Cold Harbor in May and early June 1864. Stymied in his effort to either destroy Lee's army or capture Richmond, Grant decided on a bold move. He would shift George Meade's Army of the Potomac and elements of Benjamin Butler's Army of the James across the James River to target Petersburg, the Confederate capital's logistical and transportation hub. Grant executed these challenging logistics brilliantly, in effect freezing most of Lee's forces north of the James while negotiating an uncontested crossing of the mighty James. By dawn of June 15, the Federals were poised to overrun the vastly outnumbered Confederates around Petersburg commanded by P.G.T. Beauregard. Four days later, after fighting that claimed some 15,000 casualties, Beauregard still held Petersburg and the Army of Northern Virginia dug in to defend the city for the next nine months.
The story of Grant's almost flawless movement to and across the James and the Confederates' shockingly successful defense of Petersburg will be the subject of Will Greene's talk. It is based on chapters from his most recent book, A Campaign of Giant:s: The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 1.
A. Wilson "Will" Greene was born in Chicago and grew up in Wheaton. He holds degrees in history from Florida State University and Louisiana State University, where he studied under the renowned T. Harry Williams. Greene served sixteen years in the National Park Service, was the first executive director of what is now the American Battlefield Trust, and was the founding director of Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier. Greene is the author of seven books and more than twenty published articles on Civil War history. His latest book, A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) is the first of a projected three volumes on the Petersburg Campaign and won numerous awards including best book on American Military History from the Society of Military History. Greene retired in 2017 and lives in Walden, Tennessee.
Michael Hardy on "General Lee's Immortals: The Lane-Branch Brigade"
For more information: WWW.CWRTChicago.com
Over the course of four years of exemplary service, the North Carolina brigade commanded first by Lawrence O'Bryan Branch, and then by James H. Lane, fought on the most storied fields of the war. Some of the most well-known Civil War engagements, like Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, saw the Branch-Lane Brigade in the forefront of battle. The brigade's career includes spectacular battle honors and dazzling successes, such as saving the entire Army of Northern Virginia twice at Spotsylvania Court House. Yet, there were also devastating losses and costly mistakes, most notably, the mortal wounding of the legendary Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville. The story of this brigade is one marked by glory and tragedy, from the first days of the war to the lingering effects long after Appomattox. General Lee's Immortals: The Battles and Campaigns of the Branch-Lane brigade tells this remarkable story.
Michael C. Hardy has a passion for history. Over the past three decades, he has written about people, places, and events that are frequently overlooked in the grand, sweeping narratives. He is the author of twenty-four books. His articles have appeared in numerous national magazines, and Michael has been featured on Civil War Talk Radio and in the recent "Blood and Fury: America's Civil War" on the American Heroes Channel. In 2010, Michael was named the North Carolina Historian of the Year by the North Carolina Society of Historians, and in 2018, General Lee's Immortals, his history of the Branch-Lane brigade, was honored with the James I. Robertson, Jr., Literary Prize. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama, and, since 1995, has called western North Carolina home.
Date: April 9, 2021
Speaker: Ron Kirkwood
Topic: Too Much for Human Endurance:" The Spangler Farm Hospitals at Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
For More Info: WWW.CWRTChicago.com
The bloodstains are gone, but the worn floorboards remain. The doctors, nurses, and patients who toiled and suffered and ached for home at the Army of the Potomac's XI Corps hospital at the George Spangler Farm in Gettysburg have long since departed. Happily, though, their stories remain, and noted journalist and George Spangler Farm expert Ronald D. Kirkwood brings these people and their experiences to life in "Too Much for Human Endurance": The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.
Using a wealth of firsthand accounts, Kirkwood reveals the untold stories of the George Spangler family; its 166-acre farm; the ambulance workers, surgeons and nurses who labored to save lives; and the injured who suffered and died at the farm.
Kirkwood contends that logistically the George Spangler farm was the most important farm in the Battle of Gettysburg. His book presents newly-found information about Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead's time at Spangler, the Granite Schoolhouse hospital, the Spanglers, the Artillery Reserve and stories emerging from the two hospitals on-site.
Now retired, Ron Kirkwood had a 40-year journalism career as an editor and writer, including work for several local newspapers. He has served as a Gettysburg Foundation guide at The George Spangler Farm Field Hospital Site since it opened in 2013.
Date: March 12, 2021
Speaker: Greg Biggs
Topic: The Logistics of William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
The Nevins Freeman Address Greg Biggs on The Question Was One of Supplies: The Logistics of William T. Sherman's Atlanta Campaign.
For More Info: WWW.CWRTChicago.com
The French military master Napoleon is said to have observed, "An Army Travels on Its Stomach." More modern military experts observe: "Amateurs talk strategy and Tactics. Professionals Talk Logistics." On March 12th Greg Biggs will be discussing the difficulties that General William T. Sherman encountered in supplying his troops during the Atlanta campaign. No army in history moved without a secure line of supplies especially if it moved into enemy territory. If an army got cut off from its supplies then calamity usually followed often ending in defeat and/or destruction. When William T. Sherman set his sights on Atlanta he prepared for the supplying of his army in a manner that surpassed every other Civil War general. Rebuilding railroads and confiscating locomotives and cars to haul supplies, Sherman set a daily goal for shipments to his forward base in Chattanooga. Ruthless in making sure that only supplies got on the cars, Sherman also had to worry about protecting the line of rails that ran back to Louisville, Kentucky from Confederate raiders.
Building on a system begun by William S. Rosecrans, Sherman's engineers built forts and blockhouses and prepared pre-fabricated trestles for replacing those brought down by Confederate raiders. While his preparations were masterful and thorough, they were not without some flaws. This program will examine the nuts and bolts of these logistics and cover the errors that were also made. In the end, his supply line performed as expected and Atlanta was captured. This set the stage for two more campaigns that Sherman would undertake before the war ended in April 1865.
Greg has been a student of military history from the Spartans through modern times for over 45 years. His Civil War articles have been published in Blue & Gray magazine, Civil War Regiments journal, North-South Trader, Citizen's Companion and local publications. Greg is also a Civil War flags historian and has consulted with many museums and authors and has presented flags programs to the Museum of the Confederacy and the National Civil War Museum. Greg has lectured across the country on Civil War topics primarily on flags and the Western Theater as well as the Revolutionary War. Greg leads tours of the Fort Donelson Campaign, the Tullahoma Campaign, the Atlanta Campaign and Where The River Campaigns Began: Cairo, IL to Columbus/Belmont, KY for Civil War groups, individuals and U.S. Army Staff Rides. He is the president of the Clarksville Civil War Roundtable and an officer of the Nashville CWRT. A good friend of our CWRT, Greg last spoke here in 2016.
Date: February 12, 2021
Speaker: Leslie Goddard
Topic: Leslie Goddard Portrays Clara Barton
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
History will come alive in the talented hands of historian Leslie Goddard, who will introduce Barton, the first woman to serve as a nurse on the front lines of a battlefield, as a tireless worker who faced remarkable challenges in her quest to care for wounded soldiers. Learn about the medical conditions during the American Civil War and about the courage required for a woman who dared to brave the war's front lines.
Leslie Goddard, Ph.D., is an award-winning actress and scholar who has been portraying famous women and presenting history lectures for nearly 20 years. Her portrayals, including Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Queen Elizabeth II, and Louisa May Alcott, have been seen by audiences in 18 states. She holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University specializing in U.S. history and American Studies, as well as master's degrees in both theater and museum studies. A former museum director, she is the author of two books on Chicago history and currently works full-time as a historical interpreter, author, and public speaker. Leslie is past Secretary of the Chicago CWRT.
Date: April 12, 2005
Speaker: Terry Winschel
Topic: Union Victory at Vicksburg: Crucial to the outcome of the war
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Dr. Jennifer M. Murray is a military historian, with a specialization in the American Civil War, in the Department of History at Oklahoma State University. Murray's most recent book publication is "On A Great Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2013," published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2014. Murray is also the author of "The Civil War Begins," published by the U.S. Army's Center of Military History in 2012. She is currently working on a full-length biography of George Gordon Meade, tentatively titled "Meade at War: George Gordon Meade and the Army of the Potomac." Murray's essay on Meade in "Upon the Fields of Battle: Essays on the Military History of America's Civil War," explores the leadership decisions of Army of the Potomac in the final days of the Gettysburg Campaign. Specifically, Prof. Murray places President Abraham Lincoln's expectations of a decisive victory by Meade over Robert E. Lee's Confederate army within the broader context of military history and argues that battles of annihilation are incredibly rare and thus Lincoln and northern citizens' expectations misplaced. Consequently, General Meade's leadership during the pursuit from Gettysburg, culminating in the actions at Falling Waters, must be understood within the broader contours of the feasibility of annihilating a citizen-soldier army and the rarity of coupling a battlefield victory with an aggressive pursuit of the enemy forces. Prof. Murray's previous experiences include working as a historian for the Department of Defense in the Pentagon for a year before she took a job teaching history at UVa-Wise. Murray worked as a seasonal interpretive park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park for nine summers (2002-2010). She received her Ph.D. from Auburn University in 2010.
David Powell on Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah Valley David Powell's latest book, Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah, provides a fresh perspective on the May 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign. By shifting attention away from the VMI cadets to the Union military's strategic goals and command structure, Powell adds nuance and depth to a well-studied campaign. (h/t CivilWarMonitor) The battle of New Market enjoys a status in that belies its small scale. This is largely due to the drama surrounding the participation of the Virginia Military Institute cadets. While the cadets are celebrated for their actions, historians often cast Union General Franz Sigel as an incompetent buffoon who missed a golden opportunity to sweep Confederate forces from the Shenandoah Valley in the days leading up to the battle. As a 1983 graduate of VMI, David A. Powell knows the story of the cadet's actions at New Market very well. Rather than focusing on this well-covered subject, however, Powell's study brings Franz Sigel's role in the campaign to the forefront, placing his actions and decisions in the broader context of Union grand strategy and command structure. Powell's analysis allows for a greater appreciation of the challenges Sigel faced during the campaign, including Grant's unrealistic timetable for the invasion and the failure of other Union forces to cooperate with Sigel, but he does not exonerate the general. Sigel's reliance on Col. Augustus Moor and Maj. Gen. Julius Stahel, who ignored Sigel's orders to pull back from New Market on the morning of May 15, suggests his questionable judgment. His hodgepodge assigning of units--ignoring the established chain of command--led to confusion on the battlefield. Powell observes that by ordering a counter-charge with shaky, inexperienced troops at a key point during the battle of New Market, Sigel had lost sight of the broader strategic goal of avoiding a catastrophic loss to keep Confederate troops occupied on the field and away from Gen. George Crook's planned advance on Staunton. Chicago-area resident Dave Powell has published 8 works on the Civil War, including volumes on the Chickamauga and Tullahoma Campaigns, and his latest, Union Command Failure in the Shenandoah.
Stuart Sanders on Perryville Under Fire. For more info go to WWW.CWRTChicago.org The 1862 Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, laid waste to more than just soldiers and their supplies. The commonwealth's largest combat engagement also took an immense toll on the community of Perryville, and citizens in surrounding towns. After Confederates achieved a tactical victory, they were nonetheless forced to leave the area. With more than 7,500 casualties, the remaining Union soldiers were unprepared for the enormous tasks of burying the dead, caring for the wounded, and rebuilding infrastructure. Instead, this arduous duty fell to the brave and battered locals. Former executive director of the Perryville Battlefield Preservation Association, author Stuart Sanders presents the first in-depth look into how the resilient residents dealt with the chaos of this bloody battle and how they rebuilt their town from the rubble leftover. The talk is based on his book "Perryville Under Fire: The Aftermath of Kentucky's Largest Civil War Battle." Stuart Sanders worked for nearly 10 years to preserve and interpret Perryville, Kentucky's largest Civil War battleground, before coming to the Kentucky Historical Society, first to oversee community field services, then as our History Advocate and now as the Director of Research and Collections. Stuart brings his experiences as a preservationist, interpreter, outreach specialist, author of three books and speaker to his current duties, communicating the relevance, value and significance of Kentucky's history. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and completed Developing History Leaders.
Fergus Bordewich on Congress at War For more information go to: WWW.CWRTChiago.org "Congress at War" tells the story of how the oft-maligned U.S. Congress helped win the Civil War a new perspective that puts the House and Senate, rather than President Lincoln, at the center of the conflict. This perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham Lincoln single-handedly led the Union to victory and gives us a vivid account of the essential role Congress played in winning the war. Building a riveting narrative around four influential members of Congress Thaddeus Stevens, Pitt Fessenden, Ben Wade, and the pro-slavery Clement Vallandigham Fergus Bordewich shows us how a newly empowered Republican party shaped one of the most dynamic and consequential periods in American history. From reinventing the nation s financial system to pushing President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves to the planning for Reconstruction, Congress undertook drastic measures to defeat the Confederacy, in the process laying the foundation for a strong central government that came fully into being in the twentieth century. FERGUS M. BORDEWICH is the author of eight non-fiction books, including CONGRESS AT WAR: How Republican Reformers Fought The Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, And Remade America, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2020); AMERICA'S GREAT DEBATE: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union (Simon & Schuster, 2012. Winner of the 2012 Los Angeles Times History Prize); and BOUND FOR CANAAN: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2005). He lives in San Francisco, CA with his wife, Jean Parvin Bordewich.
David Sutherland on VMI's Civil War Legacy for more information visit WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org In June 1920 just after World War I then US Army Colonel George C. Marshall, a VMI graduate, persuaded his mentor, General of the Armies John J. Pershing, a West Point graduate, to visit the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. VMI's superintendent hosted General Pershing, toured him around the Institute and the VMI cadet corps held a full dress, review parade in Pershing's honor. After the parade General Pershing addressed VMI's cadets and spoke of the role Institute alumni had played in the Civil War and the Great War and he remarked on sharp the cadets had appeared earlier that day at parade. Pershing then added that while he had often heard VMI called the "West Point of the South," having just witnessed the VMI cadets parade that perhaps West Point should be called the "VMI of the North." The Civil War greatly impacted VMI and the Institute's alumni profoundly influenced Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Evidence of VMI's Civil War legacy is still visible around the post and VMI's Civil War heritage has shaped VMI alumni for generations. West Point came of age during the Mexican-American War. VMI came of age in the American Civil War. During the American Civil War ninety-three percent of VMI's then living alumni served in the war. This presentation will discuss VMI's Civil War legacy and how this legacy affected the Institute and today continues to shape VMI alumni. Dave Sutherland was born in Chicago, Illinois, grew up in Northwest Indiana and is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and the Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis. A three time, past president of the Indianapolis Civil War Round Table, Dave is a life-long student of the Civil War and has traveled to and walked scores of Civil War battlefields. He is also a US Army veteran who served in Korea. He lives in Brownsburg, Indiana, just outside Indianapolis, and has practiced law for 35 years.
Connie Langum: The Battle of and for Wilson's Creek For More Info: WWW.ChicagoCWRT.org On February 14, Connie Langum will speak on "Wilson's Creek." This first major battle in Missouri, in 1861, was one of the bloodiest battles of the early war: A Confederate victory, which saw the death of the Union army commander. She will discuss why six hours on August 10, 1861 were important and then cover the battlefield's journey to become part of the National Park Service. She will also cover recent developments and our current renovation of our Visitor Center. Ms. Connie Langum is a 28-year veteran of the National Park Service and is currently duty stationed at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield in Republic, Missouri, where she is the Park Historian. She has a BA from Missouri Southern State College and an MA in American History from Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas. She is the Historic Weapons Supervisor at Wilson's Creek and enjoys giving small arms and artillery programs to the public. Connie is a lifetime member of the Newtonia Battlefields Association, and actually grew up a mere 15 miles from the battlefield. She is involved with the American Battlefield Trust and serves as Program Chair for the Civil War Round Table of the Ozarks. Connie and her husband Rick live in Springfield MO and are kept busy by their 16-year old daughter Madeline.
January 10, Pam Toler spoke on "Heroines of Mercy Street: Nurses of the Civil War." In this talk, Pamela Toler tells the story of how thousands of women with little or no experience with nursing volunteered to serve their country during the Civil War, taught themselves how to do the job under adverse circumstances (including hostility from the surgeons with whom they worked), and created a profession that did not exist before the war. Her research was the basis for the tv series of the same name. Pamela Toler grew up in Springfield, Missouri, where she participated in living history programs at Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, learned to shoot a muzzle-loading rifle, and read and reread the biographies of women like Clara Barton, Julia Ward Howe, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Today armed with a Ph.D. in history, a well-thumbed deck of library cards, and a huge bump of curiosity, author, speaker, and historian, Pamela D. Toler translates history for a popular audience, going beyond the familiar boundaries of American history to tell stories from other parts of the world as well as history from the other side of the battlefield, the gender line, or the color bar. She is the author of eight books of popular history for children and adults. In "Heroines of Mercy Street," Toler has returned to her first historical love: Civil War in general and its impact on women in particular. more information: www.ChicagoCWRT.org
Daniel R. Weinberg has been president and sole owner of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop, Inc. since 1984, having previously been co-owner from 1971. Since 1933, the firm has had an international reputation as experts in the buying, selling, appraising, and authentication of historical, artistic, and museum artifacts. The shop has conducted appraisals for libraries, museums, banks, insurance companies, and private collectors. He is a co-author of Lincoln's Assassins; Their Trial and Execution (2001) and has lectured extensively on the subject. He has appeared on both CSPAN and the History Channel. Mr. Weinberg pursued his undergraduate work, in history, at Temple University, Philadelphia, and his graduate work, in the same field, at New York University at Washington Square.
Ethan Rafuse: 'Back to the Chivalric Days of Yore': The Valley Campaign of 1862. In 1862, Union armies took the offensive throughout Virginia in an effort to win battlefield victories that, it was hoped, in conjunction with a policy of conciliation toward the people of the South, would bring the rebellion to an end by the end of the year. In the Shenandoah Valley, Federal forces initially seized the upper hand, driving Confederate forces from Winchester to Harrisonburg. In May, however, Confederate forces commanded by Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson took the offensive, taking advantage of Federal errors to win battlefield victories that turned the tide in the valley. In the process, Jackson's efforts helped dash Federal hopes for a quick end to the rebellion, which led to a fundamental recasting of Union strategy. This talk will provide an account of Union and Confederate efforts in the Shenandoah Valley during the first half of 1862 and the strategic and operational context that shaped and was shaped by these operations. Ethan S. Rafuse is a professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, KS. His publications include Stonewall Jackson: A Biography and McClellan's War. In 2018-19 he was the Charles Boal Ewing Distinguished Visiting Professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
James Lighthizer: The Nevins Freeman Address: Battlefield Preservation On October 11th Jim Lighthizer, President of the American Battlefield Trust, will discuss the history of Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War battlefield preservation in America, and how place-based education on this land can teach present and future generations of Americans about their country’s history, values and culture. Many of our nation’s most important principles and ideals were made real on battlefields through the sacrifices of citizen soldiers, and place-based teaching effectively tells this story of the creation and defining of the United States, warts and all: one of the greatest ever told. James Lighthizer is president of the American Battlefield Trust. Prior to his tenure at the Trust, he served as the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation and two terms as County Executive of Anne Arundel County, Md. Jim’s years of public service began in 1979 when he was elected to the Maryland State Legislature. In 1982, he was elected to the first of two terms as Anne Arundel County Executive, where he successfully managed a full-service budget in excess of $800 million. In 1991, Jim was appointed as Maryland’s Secretary of Transportation. Jim created an unprecedented program that to date has saved more than 4,500 acres of Civil War battlefield land in Maryland and is the national model for the use of Transportation Enhancement funds for battlefield preservation. In December 1999, Jim accepted the presidency of the organization now known as the American Battlefield Trust, and more than 50,000 acres of battlefield land have been saved throughout his tenure.
Janet Croon: The War Outside My Window Our September speaker, author Janet Croon, will present the edited diaries of a young teenage boy who wrote thoughtful and wistful observances of the changing world in Macon, Georgia, from 1860-1865, as he battled his own deteriorating health. LeRoy Wiley Gresham was born in 1847 to an affluent slave-holding family. After a horrific leg injury at age 12 he began keeping a diary in 1860 just as secession and the Civil War began tearing the country apart. LeRoy Wiley Gresham was born in 1847 to an affluent slave-holding family. After a horrific leg injury at age 12 he began keeping a diary in 1860 just as secession and the Civil War began tearing the country apart. He wrote even as his health deteriorated past the end of the war. He died in 1865. The diary is published for the first time and editor Janet Croon captures the spirit and the character of a young privileged white teenager witnessing the demise of the South and a crumbling way of life even as his own as his body fails him. Janet E. Croon holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science, Modern European History, and Russian Language and Area Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1983), and a Master's Degree in International Studies from the University of Dayton (1985). She taught International Baccalaureate History for nearly two decades and developed a deep interest in the Civil War by living in northern Virginia.
Doug Dammann: Elmer Ellsworth and His Zouaves In the summer of 1860, young lawyer Elmer Ellsworth and a civilian militia company of 50 men from Chicago set out on a twenty-city tour. In those days, volunteer militia companies held drill competitions, and Ellsworth hoped that his unit's new "Zouave" training (based on semi-gymnastic maneuvers modelled after those of French Algerian soldiers) would dominate the competition. The tour was a success beyond their wildest dreams. When war started and their training was needed on the battlefield rather than on the parade ground, the men who had accompanied Ellsworth found themselves in positions of leadership within the Union Army. Our June speaker, Doug Dammann, will explore Elmer Ellsworth's widespread influence on the northern army. Despite all of his drills and military training, Ellsworth's death, ironically, did not come in battle but rather early in the war, inside the Marshall House hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. Ellsworth succeeded in removing the Confederate flag raised by the building owner only to be shot and killed by the owner, James W. Jackson, as he descended the stairs from the building roof. Ellsworth's body would lie in state at the White House before being taken to his home state of New York for burial. Abraham Lincoln would call his close friend (almost a second son) Ellsworth "the greatest little man I ever met." Ellsworth's memory lived on throughout the war as "Remember Ellsworth" became a rallying cry for supporters of the Union. His death would spur even more volunteers to don the flashy Zouave attire Doug Dammann is the curator and site coordinator of the Kenosha Civil War Museum. A native of Lena, Illinois, and son of this Round Table's close friend Gordon Dammann, he received a BA in history from Kalamazoo College in 1996 and earned his Master's Degree in historical administration from Eastern Illinois University in 1999. Prior to coming to Kenosha, he worked at The National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland, and The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
Every Civil War buff knows there are never enough maps (enough GOOD maps) to illustrate a battle or campaign. Our April speaker, Dr. Brad Gottfried, has addressed this concern by embarking on a journey to map every campaign in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War. His most recent effort, The Maps of the Fredericksburg Campaign, will be the subject his talk to our group. While most know of the futile attempts to capture Marye's Heights, fewer know about the other major action at Prospect Hill that almost cost Lee his decisive victory. He will also illustrate the challenges Robert E. Lee and Ambrose Burnside experienced in getting their armies to Fredericksburg and the dreadful January Mud March. Gottfried will have books on hand that he will sell and sign at a discount. Brad Gottfried retired after a 40 year career in higher education. After receiving his Ph.D. in Zoology, he taught for eleven years at three colleges and then became an administrator. He ultimately served as president of two colleges for seventeen years. Gottfried has received a number of national and regional awards and recognitions for his leadership including: the National Council of Marketing Professionals' National Pacesetter of the Year and Leadership Maryland's Gold Leadership Award. As a historian, Brad has authored thirteen books and two additional works are moving through the editorial process. After writing five Gettysburg books, Brad has devoted his time to researching and writing a series of map studies of the Eastern Theater Campaigns, including the: Maps of First Bull Run, Maps of Antietam, Maps of Gettysburg, Maps of Bristoe Station & Mine Run, Maps of the Wilderness, and his newest volume, the Maps of Fredericksburg. He has completed two other books in the series, which should be published in the next few years: The Maps of the Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign and the Maps of the Spotsylvania/Overland Campaign. His Maps of the Petersburg Campaign is well under way. He has also completed a small book on the Point Lookout Prisoner of War Camp for Confederates, which he wrote with his wife and is self-published.
Micheal Larson and John David Smith's Dear Delia chronicles life in the famed Iron Brigade as told through 155 letters home. Young's insights, often poignant and powerful, enable readers seemingly to witness the Civil War as he did. Few topics avoided Henry's careful eye. Bluntly honest with his emotions and opinions, he left little doubt as to where he stood on the questions of the day. His correspondence--candid, contemplative, thorough, and occasionally humorous--provides a clear window into everyday events, as well as into war, society, and politics. Young's letters reveal the perspective of a young officer from America's western heartland, giving a regional perspective generally omitted from Civil War-era documentary editing projects. Young's correspondence is uncommonly interesting, readable, and revealing, replete with astute insights. It covers many topics during the first three years of the Civil War, including innumerable details of military service: the brutality of internecine "hard war," camp life, camaraderie, pettiness, and thievery among the troops, equipage, and food shortages. Henry also addresses military leadership, maneuvers and tactics, rumored troop movements, and what he considered the strengths and weaknesses of African American soldiers. The letters provide invaluable glimpses into the fine points of building earthworks, ducking incoming artillery barrages, maintaining camp sanitation, and obtaining medical care. Henry's correspondence additionally documents his business affairs on the home front and wartime inflation. From newspapers he retained a firm grasp of Wisconsin and national politics, often noting incidents of graft and corruption and his pointed opinions regarding the 1864 presidential election. Dear Delia further contains gossip and information about other enlistees from Young's rural Wisconsin community who served in his unit, Company F. Above all, Henry's communication highlights his unflagging patriotism and his fierce determination to preserve the Union no matter the cost. Micheal J. Larson first unearthed Young's correspondence at the Wisconsin Historical Society as an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 1985. Today he teaches history at an Eau Claire high school. John David Smith is the Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. He has published twenty-nine books, many on the topic of the Civil War, and has edited collections of letters, diaries, and other primary works on the war, race relations, and southern history.
Gouverneur K. Warren is remembered as the Savior of Little Round Top. He was highly regarded for his education and competence, but also accused of being too cautious by the generals who removed him from command. His record belies this, however. But Warren has suffered in the history book because of the long reach of his enemies. Here, the facts are reevaluated with some unpleasant revelations. Robert I. Girardi has had a lifelong fascination with the Civil War. He has studied all aspects of the war, and has tramped over many of the battlefields and related sites. He has collected artifacts and memorabilia and has read through thousands of documents, letters, and diaries written by participants, thereby developing an understanding of the important issues of the war and a sense of what the soldiers experienced. Robert Girardi earned his M.A. in Public History at Loyola University of Chicago in 1991. He is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago and a past vice president and newsletter editor of the Salt Creek Civil War Round Table. He belongs to two other Civil War round tables in the Chicago area. He is a fellow of the Company of Military Historians and is an associate member of the Sons of Union Veterans. He is on the editorial review board of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society and was the guest editor of the 2011-2014 Civil War Sesquicentennial issues. He was the winner of the 2010 Chicago Civil War Round Table's prestigious Nevins-Freeman Award. In 2012 he was named to the board of directors of the Illinois State Historical Society, and sat on the board of directors of the Camp Douglas Restoration Society 2013-2018. In 2014 he was awarded the Milwaukee Civil War Round Table's Iron Brigade Association Award for Civil War scholarship. He was an extra in the movie, Andersonville.
Before the famed journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley journeyed into Africa to find Dr. David Livingstone, he fought at the Battle of Shiloh as a private in the 6th Arkansas Infantry, CSA. Taken prisoner there, he became a "Galvanized Yankee," serving in the Union army and navy. He recorded his war experiences in a chapter of his Autobiography, which was prepared before his death in 1904, and then published by his wife in 1909. This program traces a trek across the Shiloh battlefield in the footsteps of Private Stanley as nearly as can be determined by available evidence, and uses his own words to illustrate his experience. The program aims to give people an appreciation of the terror of combat as viewed by the common soldier, and will help them better understand the context in which Stanley's experiences occurred. Bjorn Skaptason holds a M.A. in history from Loyola University Chicago. He worked as a seasonal ranger at the National Park Service's Shiloh National Military Park and Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center for two summers while studying at Loyola. He still returns to Shiloh yearly on the anniversary of the battle to help lead special interpretive hikes of the battlefield. He has previously published essays on Ambrose Bierce at Shiloh, on the United States Colored Troops in the campaign and battle of Brice's Crossroads for the West Tennessee Historical Society Papers, and in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society on The Chicago Light Artillery. A dealer in antiquarian books, Bjorn produces and guest hosts "A House Divided" on the Author's Voice network, a Civil War book discussion program live streamed from Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago.
Paul Kahan: The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant: Preserving the Civil War's Legacy In his most recent book, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, Kahan tackles a presidency vilified as one of the all-time worst, and shows its circumstances, accomplishments, and failures equally and fairly. Unlike most (all?) political leaders, Grant was less than obsessed with becoming president, announcing to his wife the day after the election, he was afraid he’d won. He did it because of all the suffering of the Civil War. He did not want to let the wartime accomplishments slide away. The Grant Administration was buffeted by three storms: Reconstruction, Economic Depression, and internal corruption. Grant seemed not to be up to dealing with all three at once. For the time, President Grant was considered quite active in enforcing civil rights laws. Until recently, the thought was Reconstruction of the south was a mistake altogether, that America should have left things alone to evolve for themselves. Nowadays, the thinking is Grant didn’t go far enough with strong laws and harsh enforcement that would have dealt racial discrimination a harder blow. Either way, Grant “failed.” President Grant seemed to have had no vision beyond saving his accomplishments in the Civil War. He personally was honest, straightforward, plain spoken and untainted. But the events of his era swept him into the dustbin of history, unjustifiably according to historian Paul Kahan. He says the critics were unfair, and the many accomplishments minimized. (h/t review at medium.com) Paul Kahan is a lecturer at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. Dr. Kahan earned a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Temple University, an M.A. in Modern American History & Literature from Drew University and B.A.s in history and English (with minors in medieval/ Renaissance studies and music) from Alfred University. His 2016 book, Amiable Scoundrel: Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s Scandalous Secretary of War, was praised as “Essential for any Civil War historian’s library. Kahan talked to our Round Table in March 2017 on Cameron. His most recent book, on U.S. Grant’s presidency, is the subject of this presentation.
It is well known that Indians fought in the Civil War and that several Indian wars occurred at the same time as crisis of the union, but that is not the focus of this talk. “The Civil War as an Indian War” will be an illustrated lecture exploring how the experience of American Settler Colonialism shaped the American way of war in general and the Civil War in particular. Understanding the tactics of settler-Indian conflicts helps explain the origins of the “hard war” program instituted to defeat the Confederacy. Theodore Karamanski (Loyola University Chicago, Ph.D., 1979; B.A., 1975) is a Professor of History and Public History Director at Loyola University Chicago where he teaches courses in American Indian history, the Civil War, and public history. Karamanski has been a leading and national voice in the promotion of American and public history for more than three decades. He was the founder and later director of Loyola’s Public History Program (1981-1990, 2006-current), the first such program in the Midwest and later the first to offer the Ph.D. in public history. A founding director of the National Council on Public History (NCPH), Karamanski was later elected president of the body for the 1989-1990 term, and named Graduate Faculty Member of the Year at Loyola (1993-94) and Faculty Member of the Year at Loyola (2001-2002). Karamanski has been a prolific author in the fields of American Indian, Great Lakes, Civil War, and nineteenth-century American history. He has written and edited numerous books, including: Civil War Chicago: Eyewitness to History with Eileen M. McMahon (Ohio University Press, 2014), which was chosen as the best book on Illinois history for 2015 by the Illinois State Historical Society; Blackbird's Song: Andrew J. Blackbird and the Odawa People (2012); Fur Trade and Exploration: The Opening of the Far Northwest, 1821-1852 (1983); Rally ‘Round the Flag: Chicago and the Civil War (Nelson Hall, 1991), which was winner the Illinois State Historical Society's “Special Achievement Award" (1992). He has written more than 30 articles in a variety of journals.
Tim Smith: U. S. Grant and the Vicksburg Campaign: For nearly nine months, Ulysses S. Grant tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate river city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. He maneuvered and adapted numerous times, reacting to events and enemy movements with great skill and finesse as the lengthy campaign played out on a huge chessboard, dwarfing operations in the east. This reexamination of the familiar story is organized around Grant’s eight key decisions during the campaign. Grant’s nontraditional choices went against the accepted theories of war, supply, and operations as well as against the chief thinkers of the day, such as Henry Halleck, Grant’s superior. Yet Grant pulled off the victory in compelling fashion. Smith shows how Grant’s decisions created and won the Civil War’s most brilliant, complex, decisive, and lengthy campaign. Dr. Timothy Smith, Civil War author and historian, is a native of Mississippi but now resides in Tennessee, where he teaches history at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Smith received both BA and MA degrees in history from the University of Mississippi and a PhD from Mississippi State University in 2001. Pursuing his love of history, Smith worked for the National Park Service at the Shiloh National Military Park for seven years, where his interest in the Civil War was intensified. Dr. Smith is the author of numerous books, including Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg (2004), Mississippi in the Civil War (2010), and Shiloh: Conquer or Perish (2014). His most recent book is The Decision Was Always My Own: Ulysses S. Grant and the Vicksburg Campaign. Dr. Smith is currently finishing a book on Grierson's Raid.
The recent publication of Ron Chernow’s massive biography of U.S. Grant culminates the modern historical trend to laud Grant as a general and as a president. The latter proposition has attracted critics. Not so Grant’s reputation as a general, which authors such as Ed Bonekemper have praised. On May 11th, author Joseph Rose will contend that General U.S. Grant’s vaunted military reputation is, in large part, undeserved. As opposed to his Personal Memoirs and the writings of his staff and other supporters, contemporary first person accounts and correspondence (often from Grant himself) convincingly show how he often blundered on the battlefield and then covered it up later. His extreme bias for or against various Union commander also damaged the country's war effort. Declarations that Grant was not tactically surprised at Shiloh or that he ordered the Army of the Cumberland to ascend Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga sent the author to the New York Public Library in search of primary source materials on these and other battles. The talk will contend that Grant, and the numerous defenders of his generalship and character, have distorted the historical record. Joseph A. Rose grew up reading his father's collection of military works (especially the West Point Atlas of American Wars), and other non-fiction. This began a life-long love of history and geography. During a career in healthcare management, he took a cross-country trip and visited battlefields of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Nothing was out of the ordinary, until internet discussions and debates on the Civil War Western Theater Discussion Board, demonstrated how history, especially in Ulysses S. Grant's case, could be terribly miswritten. Twelve years of research and writing have culminated in a groundbreaking book, Grant Under Fire, that comprehensively analyzes the controversies of the General's military career and after. Rigorously based on primary sources (and letting Grant convict himself by his own writing), the book is a necessary antidote to the ahistorical perspectives assumed by many past and current historians, both popular and academic. Living in New York City, Mr. Rose holds a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from the State University of New York at Albany (now the University at Albany) and a Master of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from a joint program of Cornell University and Baruch College.
John F. Marszalek:
The Nevins-Freeman Award Address: The History of the Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Named after famed historians Allen Nevins and Douglas Southall Freeman, the Nevins-Freeman Award is the highest honor the Civil War Round Table of Chicago can bestow. It is awarded for an individual’s contributions to Civil War scholarship, and their dedication to the Round Table movement. Past award winners include Bruce Catton, James M McPherson and Wiley Sword. This year we are proud to give this award to a distinguished author and historian, John Marszalek.
John F. Marszalek retired in 2002 as a Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State University. He taught courses in the Civil War, Jacksonian America, and Race Relations. He is the author or editor of thirteen books and over two hundred fifty articles and book reviews. Sherman, A Soldier's Passion for Order was a finalist for the Lincoln Prize, and his first book Court Martial, A Black Man in America was made into a Showtime motion picture. He continues to lecture widely throughout the nation and has appeared on the major television networks. He serves on the board of advisors of the Lincoln Forum, the Lincoln Prize, the National Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, and the Monitor Museum (Newport News, Virginia). After John Y. Simon's death in July 2008, Marsazalek was asked to serve as the Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association and The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant project. These papers are now located at Mississippi State University.
On April 13th Professor Marszalek will talk about how Grant's memoirs came to be written, and its history up to and including the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press publication of (eds) John F. Marszalek with David S. Nolen and Louis P. Gallo: The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, the Complete Annotated Edition. The edition was published in October 2017.
The morning of Wednesday, July 20th, 1864, broke warm, promising another sultry summer day. It would spawn the first offensive action for the new Southern Commander, John Bell Hood and his gray forces as he took over the defense of Atlanta for the Confederate States of America in the fourth summer of the war. What began as a golden opportunity to repel Northern General William Tecumseh Sherman and his blue legions from the gates of the Gate City, as Atlanta has been called, became a day of missed chances, broken dreams, and for a number of the Rebel leaders’ soldiers, a grave. The Battle of Peach Tree Creek marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy, for it turned the page from the patient defense displayed by General Joseph E. Johnston to the bold offense called upon by his replacement, General John Bell Hood. Until this point in The Georgia Campaign, the Southern Army had fought primarily in the defensive, from behind earthworks, forcing Sherman to either assault fortified lines, or go around them in flanking moves. At Peach Tree Creek, the roles would be reversed for the first time, as Confederates charged Union lines. On March 9th, author Bob Jenkins was note that Peach Tree Creek marked the beginning of the end for the Deep South and the Confederacy. Peach Tree Creek would be the first in a series of defeats and set-backs from which the South would not recover. Before Peach Tree Creek, there remained some semblance of hope for victory and Southern Independence. After Peach Tree Creek and the defeats at Decatur and Ezra Church which quickly followed, there could be no more hope of a military win by the Confederacy. After Peach Tree Creek, and its companion battles for Atlanta, the clear-hearing Southerner could hear the death throws of the Confederacy. Robert D. (Bob) Jenkins is an attorney, practicing in Dalton, Georgia. A life-long Civil War enthusiast, Bob has given numerous battlefield tours and lectures on the Atlanta Campaign. His first book, The Battle of Peach Tree Creek, Hood’s First Sortie, was published in 2013 by Mercer University Press. His second book, To the Gates of Atlanta, covered the 1864 Atlanta Campaign from Kennesaw Mountain to Peach Tree Creek.
SHOW LESSIf asked to name the six lieutenant generals who served as infantry corps commanders under Robert E. Lee in the Army of Northern Virginia, Jackson, Longstreet, A. P. Hill, Ewell, and Early, would probably be followed by John Brown Gordon. Yet, the sixth was Richard Heron Anderso--in terms of seniority, if not ability. Despite a mediocre performance as division commander at Gettysburg, Lee called upon Anderson to take charge of the 1st Corps when Longstreet was wounded in the Wilderness. Following the Overland Campaign he reinforced Early in the Shenandoah Valley. When Longstreet returned to duty, Lee gave Anderson the 4th Corps, Beauregard’s old command. He managed to escape capture at Little Sailor’s Creek only to be relieved two days later. It was a precursor to his postwar career. Lawrence Lee Hewitt, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, received his B.A. (1974) from the University of Kentucky and his M.A. (1977) Ph.D. (1984) from Louisiana State University. He was the manager of the Port Hudson (1978-1982) and Camp Moore (1982-1986) Historic Sites in Louisiana and taught at Southeastern Louisiana University (1985-1996). He was a tenured full professor when he resigned to marry a native of Chicago, where he currently resides. The 2013 recipient of the Nevins-Freeman Award, he is a past president of the Baton Rouge Civil War Round Table. His publications include Port Hudson, C o n f e d e r a t e Bastion on the Mississippi (1987), two volumes of Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi (2013, 2015), and, To Succeed or Perish: The Diaries of Sergeant Edmund Trent Eggleston, 1st Mississippi Light Artillery Regiment, CSA (2015), which won the 2016 General Basil W. Duke Literary Award. A third volume of Confederate Generals in the TransMississippi will be out in 2018. He recently finished a history of Port Hudson Civil War photographs and is writing biographies of Richard Heron Anderson and David Glasgow Farragut.
The Battle of Ezra Church was fought on July 28, 1864, near Atlanta, the third in a series of unsuccessful attacks by General John Bell Hood’s Confederate Army of Tennessee on General William T. Sherman’s Union army. After the July 22nd Battle of Atlanta, Sherman decided to cut off Atlanta’s railroad supply lines, thus forcing the Confederates to withdraw without a direct assault. To accomplish this goal, Sherman transferred his easternmost army, under Major General Oliver O. Howard, north and west around the rest of the Union lines to the south western side of Atlanta where the railroad entered the city. Anticipating Sherman’s maneuver, Hood moved his troops out to oppose the Union army. Hood planned to intercept them and then make a surprise flank attack. The armies met on the afternoon of July 28 west of Atlanta, near Ezra Church. Hood’s plans for a flank attack quickly collapsed. His disjointed attacks hit Howard’s troops head on. The Confederate army suffered heavy losses assaulting the Union army’s improvised breastwork of logs and rails. The rebels were defeated, although they managed to stop Howard from reaching the railroad line. The discouraged Confederates blamed Hood for the defeat, lamenting that they “had just enough soldiers left for another killing.” One Confederate general complained that his men “had been butchered” by the high command. On January 12, 2018, Bruce Allardice will discuss this battle, and in particular critique John Bell Hood’s management (or lack thereof) of the battle. A professor of history at South Suburban College, he has given numerous lectures and presentations for Civil War Round Tables, museums, and civic organizations, including several to this round table. Among his publications is “‘It was Perfect Murder’: Stephen D. Lee at Ezra Church,” an essay in Confederate Generals in the Western Theater (vol. 3), which inspired this presentation. Professor Allardice received the CWRT of Chicago’s Nevins-Freeman Award for distinguished service in Civil War Scholarship and the CWRT movement. He is a former president of both the Chicago and Northern Illinois CWRTs. An avid sports historian, he heads the Civil War Baseball subcommittee for the Society of American Baseball Research.
Date: December 10, 2017
Speaker: David Dixon
Topic: The Lost Gettysburg Address
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2017
Speaker: Tom Clemens
Topic: Special Order 191 and the Maryland Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 10, 2017
Speaker: David A Powell
Topic: Chickamauga: Barren Victory
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 10, 2017
Speaker: Ed Bonekemper
Topic: False Remembrance of the Civil War: The Myth of the Lost Cause
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 2017
Speaker: Don Sender
Topic: The Custer Debacle
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 10, 2017
Speaker: Diane Monroe Smith
Topic: Command Conflict in the Overland Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 2017
Speaker: Paul Kahan
Topic: Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s First Secretary of War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 10, 2017
Speaker: Bob O’Neill
Topic: Cavalry During the Peninsula Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 10, 2017
Speaker: Richard Summers
Topic: Richmond Redeemed: Enduring Lessons in Leadership from the Siege of Petersburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 10, 2016
Speaker: Bjorn Skaptasan
Topic: What I saw of Shiloh: Ambrose Bierce Goes to War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2016
Speaker: Dave Connon
Topic: Iowa Copperheads
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 10, 2016
Speaker: Lance Herdegen
Topic: The Music of the Iron Brigade
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 2016
Speaker: Dale Phillips
Topic: Ben Butler and the Federal Occupation of New Orleans
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 2016
Speaker: Glenna Schroeder-Lein
Topic: The Soldier’s Home in the Civil WarCall
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 10, 2016
Speaker: Greg Biggs
Topic: Nashville: The Siren’s Song of the Western Confederacy
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 10, 2016
Speaker: Don Doyle
Topic: The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 10, 2016
Speaker: David Moore
Topic: Gen William S Rosecrans
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2015
Speaker: Philip Leigh
Topic: Trading with the Enemy
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 10, 2015
Speaker: Dennis Frye
Topic: John Brown: The Spark That Ignited the War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 10, 2015
Speaker: Dave Keller
Topic: Camp Douglas
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 10, 2015
Speaker: Dale Phillips
Topic: The Capture of New Orleans
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 2015
Speaker: Gary Adelman
Topic: 4D Civil War Photography Extravaganza
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 2015
Speaker: Eric Leonard
Topic: Cartel, Code, and Consequences at Andersonville
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 10, 2015
Speaker: Michael Burlingame
Topic: The Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 2015
Speaker: Tom Huntington
Topic: My Search for George Gordon Meade
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 10, 2015
Speaker: Leslie Goddard
Topic: Gone with the Wind and Civil War Memory
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 10, 2014
Speaker: Jim Ogden
Topic: The Engagement at Reed’s Bridge
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2014
Speaker: Steve Towne
Topic: Detecting Deserters and Disloyalty: U.S. Army Intelligence Operations in the Midwest during the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 10, 2014
Speaker: Mark Bradley
Topic: When East Meets West: Joe Hooker, O. O. Howard, and the Atlanta Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 10, 2014
Speaker: Frank Varney
Topic: General Grant and the Rewriting of History
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: August 10, 2014
Speaker: Lance Herdegen
Topic: Gettysburg: A fight for the Colors
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 2014
Speaker: Kenneth Noe
Topic: The War in Appalachia
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 2014
Speaker: David Bastian
Topic: Grant’s Canal; the Union’s Attempt to Bypass Vicksburg,
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 10, 2014
Speaker: Scott Bowden
Topic: Last Chance for Victory: Robert E. Lee and the Gettysburg Campaign.
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 2014
Speaker: Aaron Barnhart and Diane Eickhoff
Topic: Price’s 1864 Missouri Raid
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 10, 2014
Speaker: Harold Knudsen
Topic: General James Longstreet
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 10, 2014
Speaker: Robert Girardi
Topic: The Murder of General William “Bull” Nelson
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 10, 2013
Speaker: Kevin Weddle
Topic: Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral – Samuel Francis Du Point
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2013
Speaker: Larry Hewitt
Topic: Civil War Myths and Mythmakers
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 10, 2013
Speaker: William Cooper
Topic: We Have the War Upon Us.
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 10, 2013
Speaker: Mike Priest
Topic: South Mountain
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 2013
Speaker: Ethan Rafuse
Topic: Lee and Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 10, 2013
Speaker: John Fitzpatrick
Topic: There is no failure here. President Lincoln at Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 2013
Speaker: Leslie Goddard
Topic: Leslie Goddard as Mary Chesnut
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 10, 2013
Speaker: Mary Abroe
Topic: Grosvenor of Ohio: Saving Chickamauga– From Horseshoe Ridge to Congress and Back
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 10, 2013
Speaker: David Powell
Topic: Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 10, 2012
Speaker: Dale Phillips
Topic: The Red River Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2012
Speaker: Tom Clemens
Topic: Antietam as You’ve Never Heard It
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 10, 2012
Speaker: Edward Bonekemper
Topic: Lincoln and Grant: The Westerners Who Won the War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 10, 2012
Speaker: Tom Schwartz
Topic: A People’s Contest: Lincoln, Soldiers, and the Dilemmas of Democracy
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 2012
Speaker: Dennis Frye
Topic: September Suspense: Lincoln’s Union in Peril
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 2012
Speaker: Brian Holden Reid
Topic: The Strategy of the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 10, 2012
Speaker: Marshall D. Krolick
Topic: Riding for the Union: Memoirs of the 8th Illinois Calvary
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 2012
Speaker: Wil Greene
Topic: The Bermuda Hundred
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
2012 Nevins-Freeman Address
Date: February 10, 2012
Speaker: Harry Bulkeley
Topic: U.S. Grant:: “I Propose to Fight it Out”
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 10, 2012
Speaker: Parker Hills
Topic: The Battle of Chickamauga
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 10, 2011
Speaker: James I. Robertson
Topic: The Untold Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2011
Speaker: Gail Stephens
Topic: Jubal’s in the Valley, Summer, 1864
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 2011
Speaker: Peter Carmichael
Topic: Robert E Lee and the Strategy of Annihilation
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 2011
Speaker: Tom Schott
Topic: Alexander Stephens and Jefferson Davis: a Marriage Made in Hell”
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 10, 2011
Speaker: Richard McMurray
Topic: A Georgian Looks at Sherman
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 2011
Speaker: Susan Boardman
Topic: The Gettysburg Cyclorama
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 10, 2011
Speaker: Daniel Sutherland
Topic: Guerilla War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 10, 2011
Speaker: Larry Hewitt
Topic: Slandered Heroes: Deserters Who Didn’t
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2010
Speaker: Samuel C. Hyde
Topic: A Wisconsin Yankee in the Confederate Bayou Country
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2010
Speaker: Robert Girardi
Topic: Civil War Corps Command: A Study in Leadership
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 10, 2010
Speaker: Earl Hess
Topic: Soldier Life in the Trenches of Petersburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 10, 2010
Speaker: Wayne Mahood
Topic: General Wadsworth
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 2010
Speaker: John V. Quarstein
Topic: Battle of the Ironclads
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 10, 2010
Speaker: David O. Stewart
Topic: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 2010
Speaker: William W. Freehling
Topic: The Strange, Difficult Triumph of the Southern Secession”
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 2010
Speaker: Eric Jacobson
Topic: The Battles of Spring Hill and Franklin
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 10, 2010
Speaker: Paul Finkelman
Topic: Lincoln and Emancipation
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 10, 2010
Speaker: Robert I Girardi
Topic: Railroad Defense in the Atlanta Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 10, 2009
Speaker: Brooks Davis
Topic: Lincoln and Davis as War Leaders
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 10, 2009
Speaker: Patrick A. Schroeder
Topic: Myths about Lee’s Surrender
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 10, 2009
Speaker: Craig Symonds
Topic: The Blockade: A Reassessment
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 10, 2009
Speaker: Tom Chaffin
Topic: The H.L. Hunley
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 2009
Speaker: Tom Cartwright
Topic: Cleburne and Sherman at Missionary Ridge
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 2009
Speaker: Jim Ogden
Topic: Chickamauga – Rescue at Horseshoe Ridge
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 25, 2009
Speaker: Phil Seyferth
Topic: The Murder of William Bull Nelson
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 12, 2009
Speaker: Stephen Wise
Topic: Gate of Hell: The 1863 Campaign for Battery Wagner and Charleston
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 2009
Speaker: John Latschar
Topic: Reinterpreting Gettysburg: Lessons from the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 5, 2009
Speaker: Bruce Allardice
Topic: Lincoln as a War Leader
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 5, 2008
Speaker: Craig Symonds
Topic: Lincoln and His Admirals
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 5, 2008
Speaker: Gloria Swift
Topic: Ford’s Theatre Secret’s Revealed
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 5, 2008
Speaker: Peter Cozzens
Topic: The 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign Reconsidered”
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 5, 2008
Speaker: Bill Farina
Topic: U.S. Grant
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 5, 2008
Speaker: Vernon Burton
Topic: The Age of Lincoln
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 5, 2008
Speaker: Jennifer Weber
Topic: The Copperheads
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 5, 2008
Speaker: Brian Wills
Topic: The Civil War in Cinema
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 5, 2008
Speaker: David E Long
Topic: Lincoln, Douglas and the Dahlgren Raid
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 5, 2008
Speaker: Ed Cotham
Topic: The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 5, 2007
Speaker: Gordon Rhea
Topic: Charles Whilden and the Wilderness
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 5, 2007
Speaker: John Y Simon
Topic: Could the South Have Won the Civil War?
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 5, 2007
Speaker: A Wilson Green
Topic: Civil War Petersburg: Confederate City in the Crucible of War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 5, 2007
Speaker: Horace Newborn
Topic: Stuart's Ride Around McClellan June 1862
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 12, 2007
Speaker: Michael Kauffman
Topic: The Trial of the Lincoln Conspirators
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 12, 2007
Speaker: Cricket Bauer Pohanka
Topic: Battlefield Preservation
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 12, 2007
Speaker: Edwin Bearss
Topic: Marine Corps in the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 12, 2006
Speaker: Gordy Dammann
Topic: A Museum, A Battlefield and a Hero: Civil War Medicine
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 12, 2006
Speaker: Michael Kaufman
Topic: American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 12, 2006
Speaker: George Rable
Topic: Fredericksburg in the larger Civil War universe
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 12, 2006
Speaker: Mark Noll
Topic: How the bible helped start the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 2006
Speaker: Gail Stephens
Topic: Lew Wallace
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 12, 2006
Speaker: James McPherson
Topic: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 12, 2006
Speaker: Round Table Panel
Topic: The most significant What-If's of Civil War history
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 12, 2005
Speaker: Stephen Fratt
Topic: Civil War Tactics and Technology
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 12, 2005
Speaker: Edward Bonekemper
Topic: A Victor not a Butcher - US Grant's Overlooked Military Genius
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 12, 2005
Speaker: Edwin Bearss
Topic: The most forgotten misunderstand & least appreciated civil war battles and soldiers - Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 12, 2005
Speaker: Richard McMurray
Topic: 40 Years to a New Framework for the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 12, 2005
Speaker: Terry Winschel
Topic: Stephen D Lee and the Making of an American Shrine
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 12, 2005
Speaker: Terry Winschel
Topic: Union Victory at Vicksburg: Crucial to the outcome of the war
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 12, 2002
Speaker: Harold Holzer
Topic: Politics, Dissent and Terrorism: Lincoln and Civil War NY
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 2002
Speaker: Edwin Bearss
Topic: Civil War Figures from IL and WI
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 2001
Speaker: Dave Hines
Topic: Sheridan's Early War Years
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 2001
Speaker: Mark L Bradley
Topic: The Surrender in North Carolina
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 12, 2000
Speaker: Gordon Rhea
Topic: The Overland Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 12, 2000
Speaker: Stephen Ambrose
Topic: Civil War Round Tables and the Transcontinental Railroad
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 12, 2000
Speaker: Edwin Bearss
Topic: Stump Ed
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 12, 2000
Speaker: John Simon
Topic: Grant & Lincoln
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 2000
Speaker: Craig Symonds
Topic: Battle of Mobile Bay
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 12, 2000
Speaker: Thomas Cartwright
Topic: The Tennessee Campaign of 1864
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 1999
Speaker: Peter Cozzens
Topic: My Poor Little Ninth: The 9th Ill Infantry at Shiloh
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 2, 1999
Speaker: Edwin Bearss
Topic: John Wilkes Booth and his Attempted Escape
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 2, 1998
Speaker: Robert O'Neil
Topic: The Federal Cavalry in the Peninsula Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 2, 1998
Speaker: William C Jack Davis
Topic: Myths and Realities of the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 2, 1998
Speaker: Mark Bradley
Topic: The Battle of Bentonville
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 2, 1998
Speaker: Scott Hartwig
Topic: The 69th PA infantry at Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 2, 1997
Speaker: Larry Gibbs
Topic: Reconstruction, The Unfinished Legacy of the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 2, 1997
Speaker: Ted Karamanski
Topic: Civil War Chicago
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 2, 1997
Speaker: Chris Fonvielle
Topic: The Wilmington Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 2, 1997
Speaker: Mark Grimsley
Topic: Southern Invincibility
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 2, 1997
Speaker: Mark Grimsley
Topic: Myths of Sherman's March to the Sea
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 2, 1997
Speaker: Gene Salecker
Topic: The Sultana Disaster
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 2, 1997
Speaker: Dale Phillips
Topic: Benjamin Butler and the Occupation of New Orleans
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 2, 1996
Speaker: Robert Krick
Topic: The Army of Northern Virginia Staff Corps
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 2, 1996
Speaker: Phillip Paludan
Topic: Lincoln and the Propaganda of War and Peace
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 2, 1996
Speaker: James McPherson
Topic: Darling you should not have done that: Married Soldiers in the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 2, 1996
Speaker: Stephen Wise
Topic: The Charleston Harbor Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 2, 1996
Speaker: James McPherson
Topic: Darling you should not have done that: Married Soldiers in the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 2, 1996
Speaker: Phillip Paludan
Topic: Lincoln and the Propaganda of War and Peace
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 2, 1997
Speaker: Dale Phillips
Topic: Benjamin Butler and the Occupation of New Orleans
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 2, 1996
Speaker: Robert L Krick
Topic: The Army of Northern Virginia Staff Corps
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 2, 1997
Speaker: Gene Salecker
Topic: The Sultana Disaster
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 2, 1995
Speaker: David Donald
Topic: The Reticence of Abraham Lincoln
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 2, 1996
Speaker: Jim Ogden
Topic: The Battle of Chickamauga and Chattanooga
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 2, 1996
Speaker: John Waugh
Topic: The Class of 1846
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 2, 1995
Speaker: John Simon
Topic: Afro Confederate Loyalty in Civil War Virginia
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 2, 1995
Speaker: John Simon
Topic: Grant and the First Year of the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 2, 1995
Speaker: Ralph Newman
Topic: A Handful of Lincoln and Civil War Authors
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 2, 1994
Speaker: Robert Krick
Topic: Lawyers, Politicians and Clerks
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 2, 1994
Speaker: Gordon R Sullivan
Topic: Grants Challenges as Commander
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 2, 1993
Speaker: William Piston
Topic: Clio and General James Longstreet and the Writing of Southern History
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 2, 1993
Speaker: Carol Reardon
Topic: Images of Pickett’s Charge in Southern History
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 2, 1993
Speaker: Brian Pohanka
Topic: Battle of Little Big Horn
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 2, 1992
Speaker: Peter Cozzens
Topic: The 21st Ohio on Horseshoe Ridge
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 2, 1992
Speaker: Shelby Foote
Topic: Epilogue of his 3-Vol History of the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 2, 1992
Speaker: James 'Bud' Robertson
Topic: Thomas J Wood at Chickamauga
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 2, 1991
Speaker: Mary Abroe
Topic: Battlefield Commemoration and Preservation The Reason Why
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 2, 1991
Speaker: Alan T Nolan
Topic: Robert E Lee
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 2, 1991
Speaker: Gary Gallagher
Topic: Jubal Early Myth of the Lost Cause
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 2, 1991
Speaker: Edwin C. Bearss
Topic: The Period Between Shiloh & the Capture of Corinth, MS
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 9, 1991
Speaker: A Wilson Greene
Topic: The 11th Corps at Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly
Date: January 9, 1991
Speaker: Terry Winschel
Topic: Relief of Fortress Vicksburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 9, 1991
Speaker: Marshall Krolick
Topic: The Cavalry Battle at Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 9, 1990
Speaker: Edwin C Bearss
Topic: Sherman and Hood at Atlanta
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 9, 1990
Speaker: Gary Gallagher
Topic: Early and Sheridan in the Valley
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 9, 1990
Speaker: Robert Krick
Topic: Banks and Jackson in the Valley
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 9, 1990
Speaker: William Sullivan
Topic: Chicago During the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 9, 1989
Speaker: James McPherson
Topic: Lincoln and Liberty
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 9, 1989
Speaker: Gary Gallagher
Topic: Edward Porter Alexander
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 9, 1989
Speaker: Edwin D Baker
Topic: Balls Bluff and the Politics of Command
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1989
Speaker: Gary Russell
Topic: The Battle of Pea Ridge
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 9, 1988
Speaker: Karen Osbourne
Topic: A Civil War Christmas
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 9, 1988
Speaker: Robert Krick
Topic: The Army of Northern Virginia in 1862
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 9, 1987
Speaker: James Ramage
Topic: John Hunt Morgan
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 9, 1987
Speaker: William Saffire
Topic: Lincoln's Constitutional Excesses
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 9, 1987
Speaker: Edwin C Bearss
Topic: Pea Ridge Commanders
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 9, 1987
Speaker: Rick Hatcher
Topic: Captain Nathaniel Lyon
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1987
Speaker: Howard McManus
Topic: The Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 9, 1987
Speaker: Marshall Krolick
Topic: From Capt. to Brigadier General, Farnsworth, Custer and Merritt
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 9, 1986
Speaker: Alan Nolan
Topic: A Historic View of R.E. Lee
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 9, 1986
Speaker: Will Greene
Topic: The Bloody Angle at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 9, 1986
Speaker: James 'Bud' Robertson
Topic: General Ambross Powell Hill
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 9, 1986
Speaker: Robert Krick
Topic: James Longstreet
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1986
Speaker: Marshall Krolick
Topic: General Grant’s Order #11
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1986
Speaker: James Krick
Topic: Grant from the Rapidan to the James River
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1986
Speaker: Edwin C Bearss
Topic: Grant at Vicksburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1986
Speaker: Tom Arliskas
Topic: Grant at The Battle of Belmont
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1986
Speaker: Marlin E. Sumner
Topic: Grant at Petersburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1986
Speaker: Gordon Whitney
Topic: Grant at Chattanooga
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1986
Speaker: John Simon
Topic: Grant as a Commander
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 9, 1985
Speaker: John Simon
Topic: Editing the papers of U.S. Grant
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1985
Speaker: Gary Gallagher
Topic: Stephen Dodson Ramseur
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 9, 1984
Speaker: Jim & Alice Chulock
Topic: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 9, 1983
Speaker: H.E. Howard
Topic: The Battle of Cedar Mountain
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 9, 1980
Speaker: Walter Brown
Topic: Albert Pike as a Confederate General
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 8, 1980
Speaker: Ralph G. Newman
Topic: The Lights Go On Again at Ford's Theater
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 8, 1980
Speaker: James McDonough
Topic: Final Day at Stone's River
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 11, 1980
Speaker: John Y. Simon
Topic: Grant as Historian: The Memoirs Revisited
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 14, 1979
Speaker: Henry Pomerantz
Topic: Aldie, Middleburg, & Upperville
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 9, 1979
Speaker: Dan P. Jordan
Topic: Richmond: First City of the Confederacy
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 12, 1979
Speaker: Robert Krick
Topic: Edward Porter Alexander: A Peerless, Insightful Commander
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 14, 1979
Speaker: William Mallory
Topic: Actions North of the James River, Sept. 29 & 30th, 1864
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 11 1979
Speaker: Chris Calkins
Topic: The Appomattox Campaign
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 6, 1979
Speaker: William A. Frassinato
Topic: Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 17, 1979
Speaker: Grady McWhiney
Topic: Confederate Generals: Their Strengths & Their Weaknesses
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 8, 1978
Speaker: Brooks Davis
Topic: The Battle of Perryville
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 13, 1978
Speaker: Harold Hyman
Topic: Has the Lincoln Conspiracy Been Exhausted?
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 8, 1978
Speaker: Merlin E. Sumner
Topic: The 67th Ohio Volunteer Infantry
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 12 1978
Speaker: Kenneth Carley
Topic: The Sioux Uprising of 1862
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 4 1978
Speaker: Marshall Krolick
Topic: The Battle of Brandy Station
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 1978
Speaker: James 'Bud' Robertson
Topic: Civil War Chaplains
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 13, 1978
Speaker: Sherman Lavigna
Topic: Benjamin Butler: Beast or Benefactor?"
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 9, 1977
Speaker: Lewis Croce
Topic: Lincoln and the Federal Bureaucracy
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 14, 1977
Speaker: E. B. 'Pete' Long
Topic: A Broader Approach to Civil War Strategy
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 14, 1977
Speaker: John P Hunter
Topic: The Capture & Captivity of Jefferson Davis
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 1976
Speaker: Roger G. Holloway
Topic: Great Britain and the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 1975
Speaker: Ralph Newman
Topic: Lincoln’s Incredible Funeral
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 9, 1974
Speaker: Bruce Catton
Topic: The First Annual Chicago Civil War Round Table Nevins-Freeman Award
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Sam Vaughn, Ralph Newman, & E. B. 'Pete' Long present the first
Annual Chicago Civil War Round Table Nevins-Freeman Award to Bruce Catton
Date: March 9, 1974
Speaker: Marshall Krolick
Topic: Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Feb 1974
Speaker: Richard 'Dick' Blake
Topic: A Look at Lincoln and the Schimmelfennig Singers
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct 13, 1973
Speaker: Dr. Gerhard Clausius
Topic: Lincoln’s Friend, Stephen A. Hurlbut, The Hero of Hatchie River
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept 12, 1973
Speaker: Paul Simon
Topic: Freedom’s Champion, Elijah Lovejoy
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 8, 1973
Speaker: George B Hartzog, Jr
Topic: Our Endangered Civil War Battlefields
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 1973
Speaker: Edwin C Bearss
Topic: Lee’s Movements Up the Rappahannock Up to July 1st & the Battle of Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 18, 1973
Speaker: Edward C. Johnson
Topic: Embalming Surgeons of the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 13, 1973
Speaker: Dana M Wegner
Topic: Commodore “Dirty Bill” Porter
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 9, 1973
Speaker: Bell I Wiley
Topic: Confederate Women of the Lost Cause
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 12, 1973
Speaker: Dr. Victor Hicken
Topic: The Civil War Fighting Man: Comparison of Past and Present
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct 13 1972
Speaker: Dan Lapinski
Topic: The Battle of Island No. 10 on March 13, 1862
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept 9 1972
Speaker: Lowell H. Harrison
Topic: General John C. Breckinridge
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 9, 1972
Speaker: Robert H. Fowler
Topic: New Discoveries about the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 12, 1972
Speaker: Damon Wells, Jr.
Topic: Stephen A. Douglas and the South
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 21, 1972
Speaker: T. Harry Williams
Topic: Grant as President
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 10, 1972
Speaker: Alan T. Nolan
Topic: The Iron Brigade and Reasons Why Americans Fought the Civil War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Jan, 1972
Speaker: James “Bud” Robertson
Topic: The Stonewall Brigade
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Dec, 1971
Speaker: E. B. 'Pete' Long
Topic: Civil War in the West
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Nov. 9, 1971
Speaker: Charles Wesselhoeft
Topic: Civil War Railroads, an Overview
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct. 8, 1971
Speaker: Jerry L. Schober
Topic: Mary Ann Pittman
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept. 10, 1971
Speaker: Grady McWhiney
Topic: Jefferson Davis and his Generals
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 11, 1971
Speaker: Joseph L. Eisendrath
Topic: Lincoln Myths
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 14, 1971
Speaker: Harry M. Caudill
Topic: Guerilla War in Kentucky
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Apr. 3, 1971
Speaker: Allen 'Ned' Julian
Topic: Margaret Mitchell, Author of Gone with the Wind
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Mar. 19, 1971
Speaker: Edwin C. Bearss
Topic: Port Republic & Cross Keys
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Mar. 12, 1971
Speaker: Frank Rankin
Topic: Morgan's Raids
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Feb. 19, 1971
Speaker: Harry Anderson
Topic: The Sioux Campaign During the Civil War Years
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Jan. 18, 1971
Speaker: Hobart (Hobie) G. Cawood
Topic: Cold Harbor
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Dec. 13, 1970
Speaker: John Hunter
Topic: Haskell of Gettysburg, The Iron Brigade's Finest
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Nov. 13, 1970
Speaker: Joseph A. Daley
Topic: The Battle of Pilgrim's Point
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct. 10, 1970
Speaker: Edwin C. Bearss
Topic: Grant's Two Assaults on Vicksburg, May 19th & 22d, 1863
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 1970
Speaker: Warren Ripley
Topic: Charleston Defenses of Ft. Sumter
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
E. B. 'Pete' Long discusses various Civil War Battles
Date: May 1970
Speaker: Colonel Lindsey T. Henderson
Topic: Satirical View & Impact Upon History had the South Won at Gettysburg & Eventually the War
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Federal District Court Judge A. A. Lawrence Offers a Satirical View & Impact Upon History had the South Won at Gettysburg & Eventually the War....this same talk originally given in 1947"
Date: April 1970
Speaker: Colonel Lindsey T. Henderson and Win Stracke (Balladeer)
Topic: The Volunteer Units of Georgia and Savannah
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Col Lindsey Henderson’s talk begins at 17:32.
Date: Oct 1969
Speaker: Bell I. Wiley
Topic: Mary Boykin Chestnut's Diary from Dixie
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept 1969
Speaker: John T. Hubbell
Topic: James Birdseye McPherson
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 6, 1969
Speaker: Chas. L. 'Pie" DuFour
Topic: The Blue and the Gray in Mexico
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April. 14, 1969
Speaker: Warren W. Hassler, Jr.
Topic: A New Look at McClellan
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Mar. 14, 1969
Speaker: Brooks Davis
Topic: The Battle of Perryville
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Dec. 13, 1968
Speaker: Dr. Francis A. Lord
Topic: Weapons and their Effect on Tactics
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Nov. 8, 1968
Speaker: Francis Wilshin
Topic: The Recapture of a Battlefield, First Bull Run
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct. 11, 1968
Speaker: Virgil C. 'Pat' Jones
Topic: How Not to Start a Civil War: Union Naval Forces
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept 7, 1968
Speaker: Lloyd D. Miller
Topic: The Union Left, the Second Day at Gettysburg
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 7, 1968
Speaker: T. Harry Williams
Topic: A Yank at Oxford or Teaching the English about the Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 10, 1968
Speaker: Leroy H. Fischer
Topic: The Civil War in Today's Perspective
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 3, 1968
Speaker: Ralph Happel
Topic: The Chancellors of Chancellorsville
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 9, 1968
Speaker: Joseph P. Cullen
Topic: The Battle of Chancellorsville
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March. 9, 1968
Speaker: Shelby Foote
Topic: Grant’s Seven Failures Above Vicksburg
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March. 9, 1968
Speaker: Shelby Foote
Topic: Grant Comes to Washington
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Feb. 9, 1968
Speaker: Lloyd Osendorf
Topic: The Faces of Lincoln
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Jan. 15, 1968
Speaker: Glen H. Seymour
Topic: Illinois in the 1850s
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Dec. 15, 1967
Speaker: Phil R. Davis
Topic: Justice in the Confederacy
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Nov. 10, 1967
Speaker: Ralph G. Newman
Topic: Readin', Writin' & Round Tables
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Nov. 27, 1967
Speaker: Mark M. Krug
Topic: Lincoln & Trumbull: Moderate Republicans
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept. 8, 1967
Speaker: Elmer Gertz
Topic: The Lincoln-Kennedy Assassination as seen by Jack Ruby's Lawyer
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 25, 1967
Speaker: J. Robert Smith
Topic: General Mike Lawler
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 25, 1967
Speaker: Henry E. Simmons
Topic: Northern Censorship of the Press: Necessary or Needless?"
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Apr. 21, 1967
Speaker: Howard Monnett
Topic: Westport & Sterling Price's 1864 Invasion
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Apr. 22, 1967
Speaker: Colonel Lester B. Wikoff
Topic: The Siege of Lexington
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Apr. 26, 1967
Speaker: Fred G. Benton, Jr
Topic: The Battle and Siege of Port Hudson
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Mar. 20, 1967
Speaker: Colonel Harold B. Simpson
Topic: Jefferson Davis and the U. S. Camel Corps
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Jan. 13, 1967
Speaker: George J. Fleming
Topic: Political Generals with Special Attention to John A. Logan
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Dec. 15, 1966
Speaker: Frank L. Klement
Topic: Vallandigham and the Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Nov. 15, 1966
Speaker: Colonel Allen P. 'Ned' Julian
Topic: The Gallant John Bell Hood
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct. 19, 1966
Speaker: Ralph Newman
Topic: Benjamin Butler: Politician or Hero?
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept. 19, 1966
Speaker: Sy I. Neiman
Topic: Judah P. Benjamin
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 10, 1966
Speaker: Frank E. Vandiver
Topic: Toward the Second Centennial
- Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 1966
Speaker: Sir Dennis Brogan
Topic: War as War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Feb. 10, 1966
Speaker: James Ambler Johnston
Topic: Grant and Lee: Move and Countermove
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Dec 14, 1965
Speaker: General Mark Clark
Topic: America's Wars
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct 14, 1965
Speaker: Herbert Kerwood
Topic: Story of the Chattanooga Rebel
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct 13, 1965
Speaker: Gilbert Govan
Topic: Background on the Battle of Chattanooga
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct 10, 1965
Speaker: Franklin M. Garrett & Colonel Allen 'Ned' Julian
Topic: Atlanta During the Civil War and General Hood
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept. 10, 1965
Speaker: Clement Silvestro
Topic: None But the Patriots: Union Leagues of the Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 1965
Speaker: T Harry Williams
Topic: The Valley Campaign of 1864
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 1965
Speaker: Glen Tucker
Topic: Chickamauga
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 12, 1965
Speaker: Gen'l Jim Dan Hill
Topic: Command Structure of the Union & Confederate Navies
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 1965
Speaker: Edwin Bearss
Topic: Saving the Cairo
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 1964
Speaker: Hope Franklin
Topic: The Military Occupation of the South
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 17, 1964
Speaker: Charles Roland
Topic: The Generalship of Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 17, 1964
Speaker: T. Harry Williams
Topic: The Civil War in Louisiana
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 15, 1964
Speaker: Clyde Walton
Topic: Battles by the Book: Training the CW Soldier
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 15, 1963
Speaker: Shelby Foote
Topic: Grant's Seven Failures Above Vicksburg
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 25, 1963
Speaker: Gilbert Govan
Topic: The President & the General (Jefferson Davis & Joe Johnston, CSA)
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 14, 1963
Speaker: Chas. L. DuFour
Topic: Henry Hotze: Rebel Propagandist
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 17, 1963
Speaker: James V. Murfin
Topic: Antietam: The Enigma & Significance of Lost Order 191
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 26, 1963
Speaker: Senator Ralph Yarborough
Topic: Some Irregular Notes on the History of the Douglas Battery
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 22, 1963
Speaker: Col. Allen 'Ned' Julian
Topic: Snake Creek Gap: The Historian & Principles of War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 28, 1963
Speaker: David C. Mearns
Topic: The Gettysburg Address: The Mysteries of the Manuscripts
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 18, 1963
Speaker: Edw. M. Coffman
Topic: The Notorious Captain Thomas H. Hines, CSA
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 11, 1962
Speaker: Dr. Richard Dyer Mudd
Topic: Trial & Imprisonment of Dr. Samuel Mudd
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 27, 1962
Speaker: E.B. 'Pete' Long Moderator
Topic: Antietam Free For-All
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 17, 1962
Speaker: Rev. Landry Genosky
Topic: Some New Light on the Lincoln ~ Pickett Relationship
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 17, 1962
Speaker: Grady McWhiney
Topic: Braxton Bragg: Misplaced General
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 12, 1961
Speaker: Harold Melvin Hyman
Topic: Stanton
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: September 12, 1961
Speaker: Otto Eisenschiml
Topic: Do We Need a Code for CW Writers
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 12, 1961
Speaker: Dr. Robt. D. Meade
Topic: Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate Statesman
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 15, 1961
Speaker:
Topic: The Continuing Civil War – Incomplete
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May. 15, 1960
Speaker: T Harry Williams
Topic: The Generalship North and South
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 15, 1960
Speaker: John Hunter & EB Pete Long
Topic: Symposium on Battlefields of Virginia
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Feb. 15, 1960
Speaker: Robert Kincaid
Topic: Memorable Moments along the Lincoln Trail
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Jan. 15, 1960
Speaker: Alan T. Nolan
Topic: Brawner's Farm: The Baptism of the Iron Brigade
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sep. 11, 1959
Speaker: Allan Nevins
Topic: The Darkest Hour of the War in the Northwest
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 20, 1959
Speaker: Major Genl U.S. Grant, III and Karl Betts
Topic: The Civil War Centennial Commission
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Apr. 19, 1959
Speaker: Clyde C. Walton
Topic: Recent Writings on the Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Feb 6, 1959
Speaker: William B. Hesseltine
Topic: Lincoln and Reconstruction
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Jan. 8, 1959
Speaker: Hubert H. Hawkins
Topic: John Hunt Morgan and his Raid Across the Ohio
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Nov. 13, 1958
Speaker: Avery O. Craven
Topic: Southern Secession
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 6, 1958
Speaker: Edward E. Barthall, Jr.
Topic: Some Civil War Apocrypha
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 9, 1958
Speaker: Otto Eisenschiml
Topic: Why the Civil War?
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Apr. 22, 1958
Speaker: Bell I. Wiley
Topic: The Confederate Congress
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Mar. 7, 1958
Speaker: Ray Billington
Topic: The Frontier Origins of the Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Feb. 19, 1958
Speaker: R. Gerald McMurty
Topic: Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Jan. 24, 1958
Speaker: Frederick Tilberg
Topic: Gettysburg
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Dec. 2, 1957
Speaker: Elmer Gertz
Topic: James Harrison Wilson
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 15, 1957
Speaker: Lee Bushong
Topic: Winchester in the Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Ending Lost
Date: April 12, 1957
Speaker: Bruce Catton
Topic: The Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Audio Very Poor
Date: February 18, 1957
Speaker: E. B. 'Pete' Long
Topic: Fort Sumter - Panel Discussion
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Audio Very Poor
Date: Jan. 17, 1957
Speaker: James Ambler Johnson
Topic: Personal Recollections of a Longtime Friendship with Douglas Southall Freeman, the Biographer of Robert E. Lee
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Dec. 7, 1956
Speaker: Vic Thompson
Topic: How to Enjoy the Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Nov. 8, 1956
Speaker: V. C. 'Pat' Jones
Topic: Ranger Mosby
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Oct. 11, 1956
Speaker: Colonel Ned Julian
Topic: The Savannah Campaign: March to the Sea
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: Sept. 11, 1956
Speaker: Gilbert E. Govan
Topic: "Confederate Miscellany"
Incomplete talk
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
June 1956
Speaker: Gilbert Piper
Topic: Civil War Firearms
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
May 1956
Speaker: Ezra J. Warner
Topic: Northern Army Correspondents
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
May 1956
Speaker: Frank Vandiver
Topic: Rebel Brass
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
April 1956
Speaker: William B. Hesseltine
Topic: The Prison at Andersonville
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
March 1956
Speaker: Avery Craven
Topic: The Civil War 100 Years later
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
January 1956
Speaker: Charles Coleman
Topic: Thomas Lincoln: Father of the President
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
October 1955
Speaker: Benjamin Thomas
Topic: A Candid View of Grant
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
June 1955
Speaker: Otto Eisenschiml
Topic: An Unorthodox View of the Civil War
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Speaker: T. Harry Williams
Topic: Beauregard, the Man
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: April 14, 1955
Speaker: Dr. R. Gerald McMurty
Subject: “Zollicoffer and the Battle of Mill Springs”
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: December 9, 1954
Moderator: E. B. ‘Pete’ Long
Speakers: Monroe F. Crockrell M. Kenneth McIntyre and Lloyd A. Miller
Subject: “’Stonewall’ Jackson in 1862”
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: November 19, 1954
Speakers: Professor Harold Melvin Hyman
Subject: “Lincoln’s McCarthy: John F. Potter Of Wisconsin”
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 1954
Speakers: Hartnett T. Kane & Louis M. Starr
Subject: “Spies for the Blue & the Gray” (Hartnett) “Bohemian Brigade: The Civil War Newsmen in Action” (Starr)
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 15, 1954
Speaker: Bell Irvin Wiley
Topic: “The Trail of the C.S.A.: Research on the History of the Confederacy”
Professor Wiley offers a brief critique of various Confederate leaders who served the Southern cause during the rebellion years of 1861 – 1865.
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: May 14, 1954
Speaker: T. Harry Williams
Topic: “Beauregard at Shiloh”
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: March 19, 1954
Speaker: T. Harry Williams
Topic: “A Pattern Of A Historian: A Critical Discussion of Douglas Southall Freeman And His Biography of Robert E. Lee”
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: February 19, 1954
Speakers: Panel Discussion
Topic: “Has the Lincoln Theme Been Exhausted: A Reappraisal”
Speakers include Ralph Newman, Harry Pratt, E. B. ‘Pete’ Long, William Herzog, Ralph Korngold, Joe Eisendrath, Jr., Seymour Frank, Don Russell, Elmer Gertz, Abe Geldhoff, Harold Eisenstein, Jacob Logan Fox, Marshall Rissman, and M. Kenneth McIntyre. The discussion is dedicated as a memorial to the late J. G. Randall.
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: January 14, 1954
Speaker: Robert Browne
Topic: “Brice’s Crossroads: A Study in Military Leadership”
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: June 12, 1953
Speaker: Bernard Weisberger
Topic: “Reporters for the Union”
Running Time: 42:13
Date: April 30, 1953
Speaker: Bruce Catton
Topic: “The Battle of Five Forks &
Gen’l Sheridan’s Indictment of Gen’l Warren”
Running Time: 1:24:35
Date: May 7, 1953
Speaker: Charles E. Hatch, Jr.
Topic: “The Two Sieges of Yorktown: During the Revolutionary
War and Civil War periods”
Date: May 7, 1953
Speaker: Douglas Southall Freeman
Topic: “The Five Problems of Critique
For the Civil War Historian”
Running Time: 42:13
Date: January 16, 1953
Speaker: Harry Hershenson
Topic: “Thaddeus Stevens:
A Thorn in Lincoln’s Side”
Running Time: 2:00:52
Date: November 17, 1952
Speaker: Benjamin P. Thomas
Topic: “Mr. Lincoln Reads His Mail”
Running Time: 75:29
Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
Date: October 17, 1952 Speaker: William H. Townsend Subject: “Cassius Marcellus Clay: The Lion of Whitehall” President: Elmer Gertz Meeting: 116th Regular CWRT Meeting Running Time: 77:24
Comments from Barbara Hughett’s book:
October 17, 1952 is a special date in Round Table history. Colonel Wm. H. Townsend, who had spoken to the group at Lincoln Memorial University during that first battlefield tour, came to Chicago to give his rousing talk on “Cassius Marcellus Clay: The Lion of Whitehall.” (It had originally been scheduled for the previous May but, due to illness, Townsend had been forced to reschedule.) Many who were present that evening mention Townsend’s talk as the most memorable Round Table address they’ve ever heard. The subject matter was rich. That Lexington citizen of another era, friend of Abraham Lincoln, early leader in the abolitionist cause, champion of womanhood, diplomat, bowie knife artist, and soldier was surely “one of the most colorful figures ever to march across the pages of American history.” The speaker was also a colorful figure. Ralph Newman talked about William H. Townsend of Lexington, Kentucky in a 1983 lecture: “…One of the nation’s leading attorneys, he assembled a remarkable (Lincoln) collection, mainly from the 1920s to the 1940s. He was the author of many books, the most significant of which was Lincoln and His Wife’s Home Town (1929), which appeared years later in revised and expanded form as Lincoln and the Bluegrass (1955)….One of the first Lincoln books he read was (William Eleazar) Barton’s The Paternity of Abraham Lincoln (1920). When Townsend sent the volume to Dr. Barton for an inscription, I began a friendship which resulted in the two men journeying through Anderson County, west of Lexington, in search of the history of the Sparrow and Hanks families. He became a close friend and adviser to Emilie Todd Helm, Mary Lincoln’s half-sister and the widow of Confederate General Ben Hardin Helm. He ultimately became the owner of Helm Place, the perfect place for a great collection of Lincolniana…” In this lecture, Newman said of Townsend that “those who knew him can still hear his voice and be reminded of another Kentuckian who would lean back in his chair and say, “That reminds me of a story….” The October 17 meeting was held in the bungalow apartments on the roof of the Sherman Hotel, twenty-five floors about Chicago’s loop, “with a longer cocktail hour than usual embellished with hors d’oeuvres.” The “unusually large number” of 121 members and guests (including the owner of the Sherman) attended. In introducing Townsend, President Gertz said: “This isn’t going to be simply a talk. This is going to be an event.” An article in the Fall 1952 Lincoln Herald gives an account of the talk. In part, it says: “Colonel Townsend, after first belittling his own ability as a speaker before any but ‘a small compulsory audience of twelve,’ proceeded to eat his own words by holding his hearers spellbound for an hour-and-a-half while he told in simple, forceful, and graphic terms the life story of Cassius Marcellus Clay, the ‘Lion of Whitehall’ and President Lincoln’s chief supporter in holding Kentucky for the Union….As he described General Clay’s prowess with the bowie knife and the many times in which he was compelled to wield it in duels, Colonel Townsend drew from a scabbard at his belt the actual weapon, flourishing it to his audience. When he spoke of Clay’s carved-ivory handled bowie knife that he used only on dress occasions, the speaker pulled that out too. And when he told of the immense horse pistol that President Lincoln had presented to Clay, out of Colonel Townsend’s holster came that weapon. The effect on his listeners of this dramatic realism can be imagined.” “The Lion of Whitehall” talk was later produced as a long-playing record. Currently available on tape cassette, it is as compelling and entertaining, as it was the night it was delivered
Sept 1952 - Norman Fitzgerald on The Campaign of Mobile - The Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
May 1952 Lloyd Miller - The Unions Left Flank at Gettysburg, July 2nd 1863
Chicago Civil War Round Table May 1952 Meeting.
June 1952 - Otto Eisenschiml on Gettysburg - Chicago Civil War Round Table
Dr Eisenschiml talk to the Chicago Civil War Round Table during their yearly Battlefield tour.
These talks were given on the CWRT’s first battlefield tour of Gettysburg, Antietam, and Harper’s Ferry. Bruce Catton delivered a short talk at the Gettysburg College with preceding remarks delivered by college dignitaries at that time. Catton’s talk is titled: “The Army of the Potomac: A Problem in Command.” Total Time: 79:12
April 1952 - E.B. Pete Long on US Grant, The Man Behind the Memories - Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly MeetingDate: April 11, 1952
Speaker: E. B. ‘Pete’ Long
Subject: “U.S. Grant, the ManBehind the Memoirs”
Feb 1952 Chicago Civil War Round Table meeting
Speaker: Raymond Dooley
Subject: “Abraham Lincoln, Logan County, Lincoln, Illinois”
Dooley’s talk is complete. Lincoln’s relationship to Logan County, Lincoln, Illinois. Lincoln was a surveyor, friend, and lawyer to Logan County.
Logan County was established on February 5, 1839 and it was named after Dr. John Logan, a good friend of Lincoln’s.
Jan 1952 - Elmer Gertz on Charles A Dana: the Eyes of the Government at the Front - Chicago Civil War Roundtable Meeting
Ralph Korngold was an active member of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago at the time he delivered his secession talk before the Round Table group. It is very difficult to follow Mr. Korngold because the sound is muted and English is a second language for Mr. Korngold. Even though his word pronunciations are technically correct, the listener must focus carefully on every word. Even then, he is very hard to follow. By the time his talk is over, an hour and 20 minutes, you will be either exhausted or bored. Take your choice.
Date: November 2, 1951
Speaker: Major General Jim Dan Hill
Subject: “The Red River Campaign”
Time: 1 hr/ 01 min’s/ 03 sec’s
President: Seymour J. Frank
107thRegular Chicago CWRT Meeting
Transfer Date: Wednesday, October 6, 2004
The beginning of the talk is broken up. That is because when we recorded from the reel-to-reel to audio-cassette, the emulsion on the reel tape began peeling away because it had aged so. The emulsion actually fell in pieces on the table. During the November meeting, audio recordings were something new to the Chicago Round Table. After Seymour presents the speaker, Ralph Newman gives a short narration describing Dan Hill’s preliminary movements as approached the rostrum/ board in preparation of delivering his talk. The last 14 minutes of this talk is lost.
this is the very first time the Chicago CWRT meeting had ever been recorded. E. B. Long (Bruce Catton's fact-man) brought a reel-to-reel tape recorder to this meeting, turned it on and various members have been recording ever since. The quality of this recording suffers, due in part to the manner in which it was stored over the years and the quality of magnetic tape available to consumers in 1951. After E. B. Long passed away, his wife Barbara turned over all the reel-to-reel tapes of the CWRT meetings to the Chicago Public Library's Special Collection Division. There they sat for many years in an archival box undisturbed. In 1986, I visited the Special Collections and asked if I could listen to some of these tapes. The curator gave me a strange look, she said, we don't have a tape player. I went to Ralph Newman and asked if I could sign the tapes out and transfer them to audio cassette. After signing my life away, they released the tapes with a solemn promise that they would be replaced by audio cassettes. Dick McAdoo had an old reel-to-reel recorder from his days in Korea. Using his Webcor along with patch plugs to a cassette recorder, the slow process of audio transfer began in real-time. The emulsion on the aging tape was so dried out, it literally flaked off the acetate base onto the table. It got so bad, I placed a newspaper on the table to keep the mess contained. When you listen to some of these early talks, it sounds choppy in spots - that's the original tape flaking away from its base. Also, I doubt any of the members had any expertise in proper recording, mic placement, etc. I surmise they set the mic down, turned on the recorder, and called anyone and everyone who had something to say up to the mic. A portion of this recording has an echo sound - perhaps someone flipped a setting on the recorder - it does come back, however. Knowing all this, this is still a gem of a recording since it is the first of many recordings.
Speaker: Holman Hamilton
Subject: “Old Rough & Ready and the Civil War”
Time: 1 hr/ 27 min’s/ 21 sec’s
President: Seymour J. Frank
106thRegular Meeting of the Chgo CWRT
Transfer Date: Tuesday, October 5, 2004
The entire meeting was recorded – the quality is not very good save for the actual speaker. It does improve at that point. It’s all the other on-going conversations and the discussion period that follow where the audio quality falls drastically off. If this talk is requested – record only the actual speaker’s talk, do not include the rest. I left the discussion in on the MP3, bad as it is, as part of any future developing interest in how the CWRT movement developed in earlier times.