Author: Dennis Keating – Page 2 – The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

Railroads in the Civil War

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

The American Civil War saw many innovations in military warfare. One of the most significant was the use and strategic importance of railroads in moving troops and supplies to the armies. In 1860, the United States had 200 railroads and 30,000 miles of rail, with 21,000 in the North. In the under-industrialized South, the Confederacy had one-third of the freight cars, one-fifth of the locomotives, one-eighth of rail production, one-tenth of the telegraph stations, and one-twenty-fourth of locomotive production.

Grierson’s Raid

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2010, All Rights Reserved

After again watching the 1959 film The Horse Soldiers, I decided to revisit Grierson’s Raid. The movie starred John Wayne (as a stand-in for Col. Benjamin Grierson) and William Holden as the surgeon assigned to his brigade for the raid. John Ford directed. Unfortunately, the film veered considerably from the actual raid. It was based on the 1956 novel of the same name by Harold Sinclair. The film included: conflicts between Wayne and Holden over the latter’s medical practices, a love/hate relationship between Wayne (a self-described railroad builder) and a southern belle and plantation owner, a fictional battle at the Newton Station railhead, and another fictional battle based on a caricature of that of New Market, Virginia (May 15, 1864) involving young VMI cadets. (This battle is featured in the Summer 2010 issue of the Civil War Preservation Trust’s Hallowed Ground magazine.) Presumably, these were included for audience appeal. The movie did contain at least some of the actual elements of the incredible Grierson raid.

The Battle of Cedar Creek

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2014, All Rights Reserved

This October 19 marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Cedar Creek in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. It was one of the most dramatic events in the entire Civil War. Riding his horse Rienzi (memorialized in the stirring poem by Thomas Buchanan Read – “Sheridan’s Ride”) from Winchester, an inspiring Phil Sheridan re-organized and rallied his almost defeated Army of the Shenandoah in a few hours to defeat the rebel army of Jubal Early (Robert E. Lee’s “Bad Old Man”), who had launched a successful surprise attack in the fog that morning in Sheridan’s absence.

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.

Ohio’s Civil War Generals: Some Lesser Known

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2013, All Rights Reserved

During the Civil War, 134 Ohioans (either born or living in Ohio at the war’s outbreak) were generals in the Union army. Three comprised the triumvirate of the Union’s pantheon of military heroes: U.S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Phil Sheridan. Four became U.S. presidents: James Garfield, Grant, Benjamin Harrison, and Rutherford B. Hayes. Sherman famously declined to be a presidential candidate. Other notable Ohio Union generals (both good and bad) included Don Carlos Buell, George Crook, George Armstrong Custer, Joe Hooker, George McClellan, the seven Fighting McCooks (Alexander, Anson, Daniel, Edward, Edwin, George, and Robert), Irvin McDowell, James McPherson, John Pope, and William Rosecrans.

The 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

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

During the 2009 Cleveland Civil War Roundtable field trip to Gettysburg, our group laid a wreath at the monument honoring the 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry (OVI). This Ohio regiment, known as “The Fighting Fools,” is perhaps best known for its role in helping to repel the Pickett-Pettigrew charge on July 3, 1863. The 8th OVI was part of the “Gibraltar” brigade of Alexander Hays’s division, in Winfield Hancock’s II Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

Civil War Photography

By Dennis Keating
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

The American Civil War was much seen through the cameras of a group of early photographers. The best known was Mathew Brady.