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The Medical “Rebellion” within the Union Army

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015-2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the May 2016 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Anyone who has watched television in Cleveland has almost certainly seen one of the commercials that end with the following emphatically confident promise, “I’ll make them pay.” These advertisements are for a law firm that specializes in personal injury cases, such as medical malpractice. If this law firm had been in existence at the time of the Civil War, one of the medical practices used by the Union army may have provided an opportunity for this firm to follow through on its confident promise. Battlefield medicine saw amazing advancements during the Civil War, and Civil War physicians worked tirelessly and admirably to deal with one seemingly hopeless injury after another. In spite of this, there were flaws in the medical treatment that soldiers received. With regard to one serious flaw, the person in charge of medical matters for the Union army was not responsible for this problem and, in fact, mandated a correction of this flaw. But a political appointee who is well known to every Civil War enthusiast undid the corrective action.

The Best Confederate General from the Buckeye State

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015-2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the April 2016 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

In 2012 the sports website Bleacher Report published its choices for the best player ever to play for each National Basketball Association team. The choices for some teams, such as the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Chicago Bulls, are obvious. But for other teams, such as the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, it is difficult to choose the best player in that team’s history, because those teams had an abundance of great players. If a similar endeavor were done for Union Civil War generals by state, Ohio would fall into the latter category, because there would be some question about whether to choose Ulysses S. Grant or William Tecumseh Sherman, since a compelling case can be made for either one of them. It can be argued that Grant should belong to Illinois, since Grant gave his place of residence as Galena, Illinois when he and his son checked into the Willard Hotel in Washington. But Grant’s birthplace is in Ohio, which means that Ohio can legitimately lay claim to Grant, similar to Illinois laying claim to Barack Obama, while Obama can also be claimed by his place of birth, Hawaii. If Ohio is allowed to claim Ulysses Grant, then choosing between Grant and Sherman as the best Union general from the Buckeye State is not easy. But the decision is not as difficult for Ohio’s best Confederate general. Depending upon the criteria that are used to classify someone as being “from Ohio,” there are six and perhaps seven Confederate generals who were from Ohio. (After the text of this history brief, the names of the Confederate generals from Ohio are listed along with a brief description of each of them.) Among these six (or seven) Ohio Confederate generals, the strongest case can be made for Bushrod Johnson as the best, if for no other reason than the extent of his military contributions to the Confederate cause, although Johnson’s record is by no means unblemished.

Erin’s Spartans in Gray

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015-2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the March 2016 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Rightly or wrongly, some months of the year in the U.S. are dominated by a holiday that happens to fall in that month: New Year’s Day for January, Independence Day for July, Halloween for October, Thanksgiving Day for November, and Christmas for December. Any religious significance aside, these holidays and the monthly focus on them transcend any ethnic ancestry. However, there is one month which, in a sense, belongs to a particular ethnic group due to a holiday which falls in that month. That month is the month of March, which can be said to belong to the Irish, because Saint Patrick’s Day falls in March. Likewise, some units that fought in the Civil War had an Irish heritage. Of course, the most well-known Irish unit of the Civil War was the Union’s Irish Brigade. But for those who also wear gray while they do their wearing of the green, there were some Irish units in the Confederacy. While some of these were regiments, such as the 6th Louisiana, 10th Tennessee, and 8th Alabama, most of the Irish units in the Confederate army were companies rather than regiments or brigades. One of these Irish companies was Company F of the 1st Texas Heavy Artillery, and this unit has an illustrious history.

The Slave Who Captained the Ship to His Freedom

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015-2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the February 2016 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

There is an old joke that is intended to convey the lesson that in order for a person to attain a particular goal he needs to do more than simply petition the Almighty and then let God decide whether or not this goal should be realized. As this joke goes, a man died and went to heaven, and when he came face to face with the Sovereign of the Universe, he said to God, “I am certainly happy to be here in heaven, but there is a question that I have long wanted to ask you. During my life on earth I prayed to you every day, often more than once per day, that you would let me win the lottery. But even after years of praying, I never won the lottery. The Bible says that if someone asks, it will be answered, yet you never answered my prayer to win the lottery.” God looked compassionately at the man and in a gentle voice said, “My son, it was always my desire to see you be happy, but that was one prayer that I was not able to answer.” The man replied, “You are God almighty. How could you not have been able to answer that prayer?” God responded, “Even with all my almighty powers, I was not able to answer your prayer to win the lottery, because you never bought a lottery ticket.” Just as the old joke admonishes that more must be done to address personal needs and desires than simply prayerfully await intervention by the Almighty, a slave named Robert Smalls did not merely wait for his freedom to come to him, but won his freedom in a unique and daring escape.

Some Other South Carolina Rebels Who Fought for Secession

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015-2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the December 2015 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Near the end of the movie Glory there is a depiction of the attack by the 54th Massachusetts Regiment on Fort Wagner. This attack took place on July 18, 1863 on Morris Island near Charleston, South Carolina as an attempt by forces of the national government to take Charleston from the rebels who held it. Some years prior to this assault, government forces attempted to capture Charleston by attacking a fort that was situated on a different island near Charleston, an island named Sullivan’s Island. In the battle on Sullivan’s Island, the rebels held a fort that guarded the entrance to Charleston harbor. Combined naval and ground forces of the national government planned to take the fort and then capture Charleston. In ground forces alone, the rebels on Sullivan’s Island were outnumbered two to one. The naval fleet of the national government included nine warships, while the rebels had no naval force during the Battle of Sullivan’s Island. In spite of this, the rebels repulsed the forces of the national government, inflicted five times as many casualties as they suffered, and prevented the capture of Charleston. Although the Battle of Sullivan’s Island pit rebel troops against forces of the national government, this battle was not between men in blue and men in gray. In the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, the rebel forces were American colonists, the government forces were British, and the battle took place on June 28, 1776 or four score and seven years before the attack of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment on Fort Wagner. In December 1860 South Carolina’s defiance was expressed by its secession from the United States. But in an earlier act of defiance, some other South Carolina rebels fought in support of secession against forces of their national government in the Battle of Sullivan’s Island.

Six Degrees of Simon Bolivar Buckner

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015-2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the November 2015 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

A popular movie trivia game is Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The object of the game is to connect a particular movie actor with Kevin Bacon step by step via movie co-stars from a movie in which that particular actor appeared to a movie in which Kevin Bacon appeared. One of the fascinations of this game is that Kevin Bacon, an actor who is not particularly prominent, can be connected to even very prominent actors. Something similar can be done with Civil War officers, who had many shared experiences prior to and during the war. In keeping with the use of a less prominent individual, one Confederate officer who has some interesting and not well-known connections with some prominent Union officers is Simon Bolivar Buckner. Buckner had a role in Ulysses Grant’s Civil War nickname, and prior to the war Buckner did a gracious favor for Grant. During the war Buckner gave advice in his hometown to a young Union officer who had no military training; later in the war this young Union officer made a wise military decision for his own troops that more prominent Union officers had not yet made. Buckner’s closest childhood friend was the man who was responsible for the Confederate victory at Chickamauga. Buckner also has a connection to William McKinley, although this connection is electoral, not military. In a military connection that extends beyond the Civil War, Simon Bolivar Buckner commanded troops on Okinawa in World War II, and he was mortally wounded near the end of that battle.

A Civil War Greek Tragedy

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015-2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the October 2015 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

“In times of peace sons bury their fathers; in times of war fathers bury their sons.” This quote comes from the ancient Greek text The Histories, which was written by Herodotus in the second half of the fourth century B.C. The Histories chronicles events that happened in ancient times in Greece and western Asia. The Histories is part fact, part opinion, and part fable. The quote about peace and war was spoken by a man named Croesus, who was king of Lydia, a kingdom in what is now western Turkey. Croesus was one of those fathers who buried his son, not because of war, but because of a tragic accident involving an ancient weapon of war. Croesus had had a dream in which he saw his son killed by a spear. Because of this he refused to allow his son to fight in battle. At one point during his reign, Croesus received a report of a giant boar that was ravaging a province in his kingdom, and the people in that province petitioned Croesus to send a hunting party to kill the boar. Croesus’ son, Atys, told his father that he wanted to lead the hunting party, but Croesus refused because of the dream. However, Atys convinced Croesus to let him lead the hunting party by telling his father that a boar does not wield spears. When the hunting party found the boar, the members of the group surrounded the animal and began hurling spears at it. One of the spears missed the target and struck and killed Atys, which both fulfilled the prophecy in the dream and filled Croesus with deep remorse for allowing Atys to lead the hunting party. The Civil War has a story like that of Croesus and Atys, and it involves Confederate General William J. Hardee and his only son, Willie.

A Civil War First, or Not

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015-2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the September 2015 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

If a person-on-the-street quiz were done in Cleveland, and the participants were asked to name the inventor of the automobile, the most frequent answer would almost certainly be Henry Ford. This same answer would almost surely be most frequent if the quiz were given in New York or Atlanta or Los Angeles or definitely Detroit. But the answer would be different if the quiz were given in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, or certainly Mannheim. In Germany the inventor of the automobile is Karl Benz, and in reality Benz beat Ford by 11 years in the creation of an automobile. Sometimes, for reasons that are not entirely clear, inaccurate assignments are made to historical firsts. There are many historical firsts that are associated with the Civil War. For instance, as some, perhaps many, Civil War enthusiasts know, or think they know, the first submarine of the Civil War was the H.L. Hunley. Even Shelby Foote said so in Volume 2 of his Civil War trilogy when he wrote about the Hunley, “She was, in short, the world’s first submarine.” Or was she?

The Southbound Underground Railroad

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2016-2017, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the May 2017 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

The Civil War has been called the first modern war, because many innovations that had been developed in the years prior to the Civil War saw their first extensive wartime use in the Civil War. In keeping with this, the January 2004 Cleveland Civil War Roundtable Dick Crews Debate focused on the topic of the equipment or innovation that had the most effect on the Civil War. One of the five innovations that were discussed was railroads. Most historians agree that the Civil War was the first war in which railroads saw widespread use and had a major impact. For example, at the First Battle of Bull Run, Joseph Johnston used a railroad to rapidly move his troops from the Shenandoah Valley to reinforce P.G.T. Beauregard. A few months after the Battle of Shiloh, Braxton Bragg moved his infantry by rail along a circuitous route from Tupelo, Mississippi to Chattanooga, Tennessee so he could join forces with an army led by Edmund Kirby Smith for an invasion of Kentucky. Railroads were instrumental prior to the Civil War in the development of the United States due to their capacity for rapid transportation in all directions throughout the country. However, there was one pre-Civil War railroad that operated in only one direction. This railroad, which operated without locomotives and without tracks and was a railroad in name only, was the Underground Railroad, and it went essentially only in a northbound direction.