Civil War Anecdotes – Page 6 – The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

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.

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.

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.

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.”

Well-Known Obscure Places

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 September 2012 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

There is a joke about the Civil War which asks the question, “Why were so many Civil War battles fought on National Parks?” Of course it is the other way around. It is National Parks that were established on the sites of Civil War battles. But that joke prompts the thought that we would have never heard of those places had there not been Civil War battles there. In his book Mr. Lincoln’s Army Bruce Catton has a superb passage which captures how the war came to a place that we would have never heard of had the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia not fought there so many years ago.

Rosie the Riveter and the Bloodiest Day in American Military History

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2013-2014, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the April 2014 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

During World War II many American women worked in factories to produce materiel for the war effort. These women were personified in the image of a female factory worker that came to be known as Rosie the Riveter. Similarly, numerous women worked in munitions factories during the Civil War, in both the North and the South, and represent Civil War-era Rosie the Riveters. Some of the North’s Rosie the Riveters suffered a ghastly tragedy in the explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, which was a village at that time, but is now part of the city of Pittsburgh. The Allegheny Arsenal explosion occurred on September 17, 1862, the same day as the Battle of Antietam.

The Day Rosie the Riveter Died

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2013-2014, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the March 2014 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

One of the most iconic images from World War II is Rosie the Riveter. It is a stylized depiction of a female factory worker, and it is meant to portray the large number of American women who worked in factories to provide materiel for the war effort. The Civil War had its generation of Rosie the Riveters, and on Friday March 13, 1863 a horrendous tragedy befell a number of them. This occurred when there was an explosion at the Confederate Laboratory on Brown’s Island in Richmond, Virginia.

Adversaries under the Same Flag

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2013-2014, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the January 2014 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

The honor system is something that is familiar to almost everyone. It is defined as a system whereby persons are trusted to abide by a certain code of conduct without supervision or surveillance. But there is another type of honor system that held individuals to a code of conduct that frequently led to tragic consequences. This honor system was usually referred to as a matter of honor or an affair of honor, and one such incident involving two Confederate generals took place on September 6, 1863 at 15 paces with Colt Navy revolvers.

The Major General Who Wasn’t

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2013-2014, All Rights Reserved

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

If at first you don’t succeed, find a career in something that you’re good at. This rewording of the old aphorism applies to the person who did the painting that is often called Whistler’s Mother, namely James Whistler. Before he became the painter who is familiar to many, Whistler tried his hand at the art of warfare. Had he been successful at this, he very likely could have been someone who was part of the Civil War. But Whistler failed with the sword and instead made his mark in history with a paintbrush.

The Fabricated Letter of Robert E. Lee

By David A. Carrino, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2014-2015, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the November 2014 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Anyone who has an email account has received them: those forwarded emails that relate some preposterous, attention-grabbing information about some public figure and are intended to put that public figure in a bad light. President Barack Obama is a Muslim who will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and his birth certificate is a forgery. At a right-to-life rally, President George W. Bush repeatedly used the word “feces” instead of “fetus.” Many years before 9/11, Senator Al Gore was warned by Oliver North about Osama bin Laden. The origin of these emails is almost never known, but people who oppose these public figures and the causes they embrace send these emails around the internet to discredit both the public figures and their causes. At best, these emails are misleading embellishments that bear little resemblance to the truth, and many times they are simply false. But with the internet these emails can reach and potentially sway an incredibly large and widespread number of people. The Civil War had a similar fabrication that was circulated to readers as a factual occurrence, although it, of course, was not disseminated by email.