Category: Social/Political Issues

Content related to any aspects of the sociopolitical situation surrounding the war itself, e.g. slavery, local/national/international politics, legal issues, public opinion, etc.

Jefferson C. Davis and the Ebenezer Creek Controversy

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved

In addition to the murder of General “Bull” Nelson, Union General Jefferson C. Davis is also remembered for what occurred on December 9, 1864 at Ebenezer Creek, Georgia. As Sherman’s army neared Savannah in its March to the Sea, the 14,000-man XIV Corps commanded by Davis was the rear guard. Union engineers had to place a pontoon bridge across the creek swollen by rain to replace a removed bridge. As the troops passed over the creek, they were trailed by a mass of former slaves that was following Sherman’s army across Georgia.

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The Irish in the Civil War

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved

Introduction

On my mother’s German side from Western Pennsylvania, I had a great-grandfather and two of his brothers who served in Pennsylvania volunteer regiments in the Civil War. Even though the Irish on my father’s side had not yet arrived in the United States and Ohio during the Civil War, I have been interested more in the Irish-Americans who fought for the Union than the German-Americans.

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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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The War that Never Was: Britain, the U.S. and the Trent Affair

By William F.B. Vodrey
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2000, 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in the fall of 2000.

They say when it rains, it pours. And just when the United States was locked in a deadly struggle with the Confederacy, just when the military picture was at its bleakest, just when Abraham Lincoln’s desk was piled highest, it looked very likely that Great Britain – the mightiest empire on the face of the Earth – would, for the third time in ninety years, wage war against us. Fortunately, it didn’t happen. A conflict spanning the Atlantic was averted, and the U.S.-British war of 1861 became the war that never was.

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George Washington: Hero of the Confederacy?

By William F.B. Vodrey
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2007 Weider History Group
This article originally appeared in the October 2004 issue of American History magazine.

The cost of political greatness, it’s been said, is to be forced to campaign long after your death. That’s certainly true of George Washington, whose name, image, and legacy were appropriated by the Confederacy.

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Five Hundred Dead and a Hoax that Lives On

By Peter Holman
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2015, All Rights Reserved

One hundred and forty years ago, a man hailed as a modern Robinson Crusoe made a brief appearance in newspapers across the world and continues today to impact genealogists, historical societies and miscellaneous bloggers throughout the world-wide web. And he was, with all moral certainty, long dead.

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Lincoln’s Suspension of Habeas Corpus

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2012, All Rights Reserved

This article addresses President Abraham Lincoln’s wartime suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus and recounts the cases of John Merryman, Clement Vallandigham, and Lambdin Milligan. The cast of characters includes many Ohioans.

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Blood in the Streets: The New York City Draft Riots

By William F.B. Vodrey
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2003, 2010, All Rights Reserved

The New York City Draft Riots of July 13-16, 1863, were by some measures the most bloody and devastating riots in American history. At a time when the Civil War was raging on battlefields, rivers and oceans, violence and terror ruled the streets of our largest city, and battle-weary troops had to be rushed from Gettysburg to help restore order. What began as a protest against the Federal draft quickly degenerated into a racial and social struggle as ugly as any in the Deep South – far more Jim Crow than Big Apple.

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The Search for the Lost Confederate Gold

By Hans Kuenzi
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2008, All Rights Reserved

In late May 1861, Jefferson Davis, the former Mississippi Senator and the reluctant president of the seceding Confederate States of America, moved the capital of the CSA from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia to boost the morale of the Confederate troops and weld Virginia to the Confederacy. Had he known that in April of 1865 he, his cabinet and about $700,000 in gold and specie would have to evacuate Richmond to avoid capture during the waning days of the Civil War, he might have elected to remain in Montgomery. (Note: ‘specie’ describes money in the form of coins, usually gold or silver, as opposed to paper money. Also called hard currency. Since the gold standard was abolished in the 1930s, gold coins, aside from their higher intrinsic value and demand as collectibles, no longer have any special worth as a standard of value in world trade. Dictionary of Banking Terms.)

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