Author: Dale Thomas – The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

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

Bragg vs. Rosecrans at Stones River, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2001, 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in the winter of 2001.

The Battle of Stones River took place between December 31, 1862 and January 2, 1863. The fighting started as it had at Shiloh, the previous spring, and the casualties were similar. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, the Confederate attack surprised the Federals who were still eating breakfast. The map shows the course of the fighting during that first, bloody day. The next day saw little significant fighting, but there was no celebrating of New Year’s Day. The two armies held their ground and tended to the wounded and dead.

Governors Island

By Dale Thomas
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.

I was stationed on Governors Island during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. Lying 500 yards off the southern tip of Manhattan, the 170-acre island was at the time First Army Headquarters. A few years later, the base became a Coast Guard station until being closed down in 1997. After a great deal of government red tape, I was able to tour the closed base in the summer of 1998. The next day my son, Geoffrey, and I looked down on the island from the 110th floor of the World Trade Center’s south tower. Tragically, the skyline of lower Manhattan again resembles what I remember from my Army days. Governors Island, which had been a U.S. military post since the Revolution, will be turned over next year to New York City and reopened as a park.

The Deadliest Enemy

By Dale 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 2001.

Civil War enthusiasts know well that combat deaths and deaths resulting from battlefield wounds were major factors in the over 600,000 Civil War deaths. But the wartime experiences of the 5th Illinois Cavalry demonstrate that as deadly as combat was, something other than this was the deadliest enemy.

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.

Silent Witnesses to the Civil War, Part 2: Rockport Pioneer Cemetery

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

Part 2 of a 3-part article on cemeteries in in the western suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio that have connections to the Civil War.

Silent Witnesses to the Civil War, Part 1: Evergreen Cemetery

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2004, All Rights Reserved

Part 1 of a 3-part article on cemeteries in in the western suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio that have connections to the Civil War.

Lincoln and the Black Hawk War

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2004, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article is an excerpt from a chapter of Dale Thomas’s book, Lincoln’s Old Friends of Menard County, Illinois. After his failure to win the Whig nomination for Congress in 1843, Lincoln wrote to a political associate: “It is truly gratifying to me to learn that while the people of Sangamon [County] have cast me off, my old friends of Menard [County] who have known me longest and best of any, still retain their confidence in me.”¹

Lincoln and Cleveland

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2003, All Rights Reserved

Artemus Ward

In 1857, Charles Farrar Brown became the local editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and began to write articles about an itinerant showman named Artemus Ward. Later moving on to Vanity Fair in New York City, Brown’s humorous commentary of the news was admired and enjoyed by Lincoln. “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day,” he told his Cabinet, “if I did not laugh I should die…”

Johnson’s Island

By Dale Thomas
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2002, 2008, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in The Charger in March 2002.

During Career Day at Bay High School in 1990, Professor David R. Bush talked to my students about archaeology. He invited me to observe his excavations that summer on Johnson’s Island in Sandusky Bay, Ohio. What most intrigued me were the remains of collapsed escape tunnels that he had found leading from some of the sink (latrine) structures to the stockade walls. The soil of one of these tunnels yielded a gold watch and a gold locket with the remains of a photograph and lock of hair tied with a ribbon. He also discovered a large iron bar and cow bone that were apparently used for digging. (Bush wrote an article in Archaeology magazine in 1999.) Before leaving the island, I went to the prison cemetery where the remains of 235 prisoners are buried. Only 12 Confederates were able to escape from the island but not to the mirage across the bay, Cedar Point Amusement Park.