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All Her Hopes

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2011-2012, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the December 2011 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

The phrase “fratricidal war” has been used to describe the Civil War as a way of conveying how that war figuratively pitted brother against brother. In many cases it wasn’t just figurative, but literal. However, not all brothers fought on opposite sides in the Civil War, and one such example are the Moungers. John and Thomas Mounger were members of the 9th Georgia Volunteer Infantry, which was part of the Army of Northern Virginia. The regiment’s colonel was their father, also named John. On July 18, 1863, in the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, son John sent the following letter to his mother.

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General Slocum and General Slocum

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2011-2012, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the November 2011 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Sometimes connections to the Civil War are convoluted and unexpected. For example, if Civil War enthusiasts hear “General Slocum,” probably most of them think of Union General Henry W. Slocum, a corps commander during the Civil War. But there is another General Slocum, and this one italicized her name because she was a passenger steamboat.

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Forgotten Heroes

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2011-2012, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the September 2011 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. William Tecumseh Sherman and Stonewall Jackson. Every Civil War enthusiast knows the contributions of these men to the Civil War. But that war, like all wars, included contributions of numerous people whose names are not known to history.

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The Rising of the Sun and of Gods

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012-2013, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the June 2013 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

One of the truly enjoyable aspects of the Civil War is the memorable quotes that were uttered by people who participated in it. No doubt everyone who is interested in the Civil War has some favorite Civil War quotes. Two excellent quotes, one Union and one Confederate, are associated with the Battle of Chancellorsville. One quote mentions the rising of the sun, and the other talks about how someone rose to an exalted position in history.

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Dear to Democracy

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012-2013, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the May 2013 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

I am nervous every time I present one of these history briefs, because I know that the knowledge of history possessed by every member of this Roundtable far exceeds my own. But tonight my level of trepidation is at a record high, because tonight’s speaker, Harold Holzer, is without question one of the most eminent historians of today. With that in mind, I grappled mightily with how best to present a history brief that is palatable to a renowned historian like Harold, and I came up with three strategies.

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The Highest Ranking Officer in the Confederate Army

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012-2013, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the March 2013 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

One interesting bit of trivia about the Civil War is the identity of the highest ranking officer in the Confederate Army. It was not Robert E. Lee, although that is the answer that many people would give. Nor was it Albert Sidney Johnston; he was number two. At least he was number two until the Battle of Shiloh, where he was mortally wounded. It was also not Joseph E. Johnston, even though he famously believed that it should have been. The highest ranking officer in the Confederate Army was Samuel Cooper, which leads to the next questions. Who was Samuel Cooper, and how did he come to be the South’s highest ranking officer?

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The Other Star-Spangled Banner

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012-2013, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the February 2013 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

At the time of the Civil War neither side, Union or Confederate, had an official national anthem. But in light of what became the national anthem of the United States of America, it can be argued that there is a song that comes closer to a national anthem of the Confederate States of America than the song “Dixie,” which many consider the CSA’s national anthem. That song is “The Bonnie Blue Flag.”

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The Social Network of Civil War Dead

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012-2013, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the January 2013 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

In October 2012 Facebook announced with great fanfare that its social network had exceeded one billion people. That is certainly very impressive, but Civil War nurse Cornelia Hancock was head of a social network that included a functionality that Mark Zuckerberg probably never contemplated when he developed Facebook. Cornelia Hancock’s social network extended into the afterlife, and she described it in a letter to her family from a military hospital near Gettysburg.

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Two Lost Causes

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012-2013, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the December 2012 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

In 1995 the U.S. Post Office issued a series of stamps to commemorate the Civil War. Evidently there was some Southern input into the design of this stamp series, because a heading underneath the main heading reads, “The War between the States.” The people selected for depiction on the stamps include those who are expected, such as Lincoln and Davis, Grant and Lee, and Sherman and Jackson. There is, however, one person whose inclusion has to be considered surprising, and that is someone named Stand Watie. When I first saw these stamps, I had no idea who Stand Watie was. Since this stamp series includes a mere 16 stamps that depict individuals from the Civil War, can Stand Watie be considered worthy of inclusion as one of the top 16 people of the Civil War?

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A Musical Historical First

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012-2013, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the November 2012 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

What do the following historical figures have in common: Ferdinand Magellan, Roger Bannister, Yuri Gagarin, and Louise Brown? The answer is that each one earned a place in history primarily by being the first person to do something: Magellan for leading the first circumnavigation of the Earth, Bannister for running the first sub-four-minute mile, Gagarin for being the first human to go into outer space, and Brown for being the first person born through in vitro fertilization. Not that these people did nothing else of consequence, but their place in history really came from being the first person to do something.

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