Category: Commentary

The Campaign Against the Confederate Battle Flag

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015, All Rights Reserved

July 9, 2015 saw Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, sign the bill removing the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state capital. This ended a decades long struggle. The flag came down the next day, to be placed in a museum. This was triggered by the massacre of nine African Americans participating in a Bible study group in the historic Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston on June 17 by a white supremacist.

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Tactical Defeat

By Matt Slattery
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.

Many of the books on the Civil War (the fighting Civil War) deal with the strategy of the governments, North and South, and as carried out by their leading generals. Then there is a great break and many books then turn to the story of the individual soldier, the young man in blue or gray, and his contention with the terrors of battles and the risks of years’ long campaigning.

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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.

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How the South Could Have Won the War

By David 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 1999.

In the beginning of the Civil War, the Confederacy won many decisive victories. As the war continued, however, the Confederacy weakened and in the end, the Union was the victor. But, could the South have won? There are five events that, had they turned out differently, might have allowed the South to win:

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The Vigilantes of Montana Revisited

By John C. Fazio & Carol Buchanan
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2011, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: In February 2005 CCWRT past president John Fazio published his article The Vigilantes of Montana in The Charger, the CCWRT newsletter. The article was later republished here on the CCWRT Website and in November 2010 a revision of the article was published in The Montana Pioneer, where it caught the attention of Montana writer Carol Buchanan. Ms. Buchanan is the author of God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, an historical novel set in Montana during the vigilante period. Ms. Buchanan wrote to us taking exception to several points made by Mr. Fazio in his article and even graciously submitted her own overview of the period, Gold, Greed and a Vacuum of Law, for publication on the CCWRT website.

The article below is a dialog between our two authors, John Fazio and Carol Buchanan discussing their differences on the history of the vigilante period in Montana.

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Gold, Greed, and a Vacuum of Law

By Carol Buchanan
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2011 Carol Buchanan, All Rights Reserved

As he helps to bury a murdered friend, attorney Daniel Stark (the protagonist in my historical novel God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana) wonders how to find the killer and bring him to justice:

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The Vigilantes of Montana

By John C. Fazio
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2005, All Rights Reserved

Previously, I have argued in these pages that the decisive battle of the Civil War was not Gettysburg, as so many assume (though its critical importance cannot be denied), but Spotsylvania and Grant’s literal turning south that preceded it after his defeat in the Wilderness. My point was that the rolling twelve-day slugfest that was Spotsylvania demonstrated to Robert E. Lee both the unprecedented doggedness of the new commander of the Army of the Potomac and the terrible arithmetic that spelled the doom of the Confederacy, that is, Grant’s ability and Lee’s inability to replace losses.

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The Illusion of “The Lost Cause”

By Matt Slattery
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in The Charger in March 2002. Its author, Matt Slattery, wrote it shortly before his death in December 2001. Even at 90 years of age Matt was still looking at new ideas about his and our favorite hobby, the American Civil War. Matt will be missed.

In 1865, the Civil War ended and the North had won. Had the South lost? Their generals had to admit it. Their armies were broken, their cities demolished, their railroads a wreck. Was all this acceptable to the Confederates? They ignored it (as best they could) by not writing about it, not speaking about it. Instead, they trumpeted The Lost Cause.

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Did the Institution of Slavery Cause the Civil War?

By John C. Fazio
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2007, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: A debate on the cause or causes of the Civil War was held on January 10, 2007 as part of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable’s monthly meeting. It was an intercollegiate-style debate, i.e., two on the affirmative and two on the negative. The resolution debated was: Resolved: That the Institution of Slavery Was the Cause of the Civil War. The negative won, based on a vote of the attendees. Following the debate in that forum, John C. Fazio, the Roundtable president at the time of that debate, weighed in with the following.

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