cleveland – Page 21 – The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

Grant vs. Lee

By Dan Zeiser
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in December 2002.

The age-old question. The two best-known generals of the war. The commanders who battled one other at the end of the war. Lee’s surrender to Grant is generally, and incorrectly, considered the end of the war. Given his besting of Lee, is Grant the better general? Much has been written over the years, yet the question remains.

“We Shall Make the Fight!”

General John Bell Hood, CSA and the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, November 30, 1864

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2005, All Rights Reserved

Confederate General John Bell Hood, commander of the Army of Tennessee, sits on his horse on Winstead Hill looking north towards the village of Franklin TN. It’s 1:00 in the afternoon of November 30, 1864 – a balmy fall day after several days of chilly wet weather in the area. He holds his field glasses in his right hand, his left arm hangs useless at his side – the result of a wound received during the Battle of Gettysburg which almost cost him the arm. Another wound, this time during the Battle of Chickamauga, did cost him all but 4 inches of his right leg. He has an artificial leg but has to be tied to his horse to keep from falling off. General Hood is in pain and he is angry, very angry.

The Battles of Nashville

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved

Whatever hope the rebellious South had for continuing its fight until the North grew tired of the bloody struggle died – not with the surrender of Lee at Appomattox Court House in April 1865 – but rather on the hills outside of Nashville Tennessee, when Confederate General John Bell Hood and his Army of Tennessee were crushed in the last great battle of the Civil War in December 1864.

The Battle of Olustee

By Dr. Michael Dory
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a presentation made by Dr. Dory to the CCWRT in April, 2009.

Background

On December 15, 1863, Major General Q. A. Gillmore proposed certain operations in Florida to Major General H. W. Halleck, General in Chief, with the object of recovering the most valuable part of the state, cutting off supplies for the Confederacy, and the recruiting of Negro troops. General Gillmore was commanding the Department of the South of the Federal Army. His headquarters were at Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Bragg vs. Rosecrans at Stones River, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2001, 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in the winter of 2001.

The Battle of Stones River took place between December 31, 1862 and January 2, 1863. The fighting started as it had at Shiloh, the previous spring, and the casualties were similar. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, the Confederate attack surprised the Federals who were still eating breakfast. The map shows the course of the fighting during that first, bloody day. The next day saw little significant fighting, but there was no celebrating of New Year’s Day. The two armies held their ground and tended to the wounded and dead.

Fort Ward: Bastion Against the South

By Daniel J. Ursu
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved

Fort Ward is one of the 68 forts eventually built by the North during the Civil War that ringed Washington, D.C. as protection against southern invasion and raids.

Governors Island

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in the winter of 2002.

I was stationed on Governors Island during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. Lying 500 yards off the southern tip of Manhattan, the 170-acre island was at the time First Army Headquarters. A few years later, the base became a Coast Guard station until being closed down in 1997. After a great deal of government red tape, I was able to tour the closed base in the summer of 1998. The next day my son, Geoffrey, and I looked down on the island from the 110th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower. Tragically, the skyline of lower Manhattan again resembles what I remember from my Army days. Governors Island, which had been a U.S. military post since the Revolution, will be turned over next year to New York City and reopened as a park.

The Deadliest Enemy

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in the spring of 2001.

Civil War enthusiasts know well that combat deaths and deaths resulting from battlefield wounds were major factors in the over 600,000 Civil War deaths. But the wartime experiences of the 5th Illinois Cavalry demonstrate that as deadly as combat was, something other than this was the deadliest enemy.

Letters from the Front

By John C. Fazio
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2009, All Rights Reserved

About the Letters

The following letters were given to one of our members by a kindly fellow from Tallmadge, Ohio, named Bob Lowry, after the member addressed a group there. They appear to have been written in 1862 from Ft. Scott, Kansas, by a Union soldier named George C. Ashmun, who was from Tallmadge, though some of his letters were addressed to West Virginia and Indiana, too. Interestingly, there are still Ashmuns living in Tallmadge. Additionally, a Google search revealed a publication in Ohio Mollus – Sketches of War History, Vol. Two, transcribed by Larry Stevens, titled “Recollections of a Peculiar Service,” by Second Lieutenant George C. Ashmun. This may or may not be our Ashmun, though an intelligent guess is that it is.

Grierson’s Raid

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2010, All Rights Reserved

After again watching the 1959 film The Horse Soldiers, I decided to revisit Grierson’s Raid. The movie starred John Wayne (as a stand-in for Col. Benjamin Grierson) and William Holden as the surgeon assigned to his brigade for the raid. John Ford directed. Unfortunately, the film veered considerably from the actual raid. It was based on the 1956 novel of the same name by Harold Sinclair. The film included: conflicts between Wayne and Holden over the latter’s medical practices, a love/hate relationship between Wayne (a self-described railroad builder) and a southern belle and plantation owner, a fictional battle at the Newton Station railhead, and another fictional battle based on a caricature of that of New Market, Virginia (May 15, 1864) involving young VMI cadets. (This battle is featured in the Summer 2010 issue of the Civil War Preservation Trust’s Hallowed Ground magazine.) Presumably, these were included for audience appeal. The movie did contain at least some of the actual elements of the incredible Grierson raid.