Category: History Briefs

History briefs written by the Roundtable historian

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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The Only Man to Beat Robert E. Lee in an Even Fight

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 October 2012 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

There are some who consider Robert E. Lee the greatest military leader of the Civil War. But Ulysses S. Grant beat Robert E. Lee, which calls into question the claim that Lee was the greatest military leader of the Civil War. However, that wasn’t an even fight, and even if detractors of Lee and admirers of Grant refuse to admit that it wasn’t an even fight, it doesn’t change that fact. Nevertheless, there was someone who did beat Robert E. Lee in an even fight, and that person was Charles Mason.

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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.

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Robert E. Lee’s Invasion of Ohio

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 May 2014 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

People with even a little knowledge of the Civil War likely know that Robert E. Lee led two invasions of the North, one into Maryland and another into Pennsylvania. However, Lee once invaded Ohio, and if Lee had been successful in this invasion, Ohio would have lost some of its territory. Worse yet, the territory that Ohio would have lost would have been lost not to the Confederacy, but to the state of Michigan.

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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.

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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.

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The Last U.S. President Who Was a Slaveholder

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 February 2014 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

One interesting piece of Civil War-related trivia is the last U.S. president who was a slaveowner for at least some time in his life. The perhaps surprising answer is Ulysses S. Grant. As far as is known, Grant owned only one slave in his lifetime, and he freed that slave even though at the time Grant was in a dire financial situation and could have made some much needed money by selling his slave.

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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.

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John C. Calhoun’s Other Tomb

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 December 2013 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

Many people share the blame that there was not a peaceful resolution of the issues of secession and slavery, but the person who is perhaps most responsible for starting the fire on which the fire-eaters dined is John C. Calhoun. He has been called by some historians the patron saint of secession, a distinction that he indisputably merits. Calhoun is revered in the South as a steadfast champion of states rights and Southern rights, and he is reviled in the North as a pigheaded partisan of states rights and Southern rights. Born in South Carolina, Calhoun’s hand rocked the cradle of secession until that state became the standard-bearer for disunion.

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