Cleveland Civil War Roundtable: 1956 – 2006

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2006, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published as part of the Roundtable’s 50th anniversary celebration in November 2006.


Early Years

I was a Johnny-Come-Lately as far as the Civil War was concerned. Forty years ago I was given a copy of Ben Ames Williams’ House Divided. From that day on my interest in the war and its personalities became an obsession. When the Cleveland Roundtable came into being I found a group of men who shared my enthusiasm. Many close friendships developed, friendships that continue to this day. It has been a rewarding experience.

– John Cullen, 1994

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Cleveland Civil War Roundtable 60th Anniversary

By Mel Maurer
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: Mel Maurer is a past president of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable and served for many years as its Historian. The address below was delivered at the November 9, 2016 meeting of the Roundtable commemorating the 60th anniversary of the club’s founding.


Three score years ago this month – our founders brought forth in Cleveland a new Civil War Roundtable dedicated to the “belief that the American Civil War is the defining event in U.S. history.”

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The 51st Ohio Volunteer Infantry

Compiled by Dick Crews
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 2001.


The 51st Ohio Volunteer Infantry was formed from the Dover/New Philadelphia area of Ohio in October of 1861. After training, the unit was sent to Louisville, Kentucky. Their first casualty was a private who fell off the steamboat and drowned in the Ohio River. The 51st was at the Battle of Perryville but saw no action.

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Silent Witnesses to the Civil War, Part 3: Lakeside, Maple Ridge, Coe Ridge, and Chestnut Grove Cemeteries

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2005, All Rights Reserved

Part 3 of a 3-part article on cemeteries in in the western suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio that have connections to the Civil War.


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Whatever Happened to Camp Cleveland?

By Paul Siedel
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

The largest Civil War training camp in Northeast Ohio was Camp Cleveland, located in the Tremont neighborhood just to the south of downtown Cleveland. Along with the U.S. General Hospital it covered approximately 80 acres and according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History eventually trained 15,230 U.S. troops. It also served as a transit camp for troops moving from one front to another and housed two groups of Confederate prisoners. Camp Cleveland was, however, the only west side facility. Camps Wood, Taylor, Tod and Brown were located along Woodland Avenue between East 55th and Ontario Street. Today, this is the route of the Innerbelt freeway.

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Cleveland Fights the Civil War

By Dick Crews
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.


Cleveland and Cuyahoga County contributed a large percentage of its manpower to the American Civil War. The federal census of 1860 showed Cleveland’s population to be 43,838. The total Cuyahoga County population was approximately 50,000. The records on the walls of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Public Square, the official record of the county, contain the names of 10,000 residents of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County who fought in the Civil War.

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Three Ohio Civil War Veterans Who Became President

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2007, All Rights Reserved

Introduction

Five Ohio-born Civil War veterans later became President of the United States. William Tecumseh Sherman might have been a sixth, but he famously refused to be nominated. The first was Ulysses S. Grant, the victorious hero and general in chief who captured three Confederate armies and who served two terms as the 18th President succeeding Andrew Johnson, the assassinated Abraham Lincoln’s second Vice President. Grant, of course, deserves separate treatment by himself and also began his Civil War career in Illinois, not Ohio.

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