Meeting Details December 2022 through Feb 2023

CWRTDC'S PREVIOUS MEETING

VIA ZOOM

"I DREAD THE THOUGHT OF THE PLACE: 

THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM AND THE END OF THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN"

presentation by

D. SCOTT HARTWIG

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023

About the Topic:

Scott Hartwig will discuss some of what he learned about Antietam over the nearly ten years he worked on his forthcoming book.

About the Speaker:

D. Scott Hartwig retired in 2014 as the supervisory park historian at Gettysburg National Military Park after a 34-year career in the National Park Service, nearly all of it spent at Gettysburg.  He won the regional Freeman Tilden Award for excellence in interpretation in 1993, and was a key player for the design of all aspects of the Gettysburg museum/visitor center.  He is the author of , published in September 2012 by Johns Hopkins University Press, and the forthcoming , to be published in August 2023.To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign from September 3 to September 16I Dread The Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and End of the Maryland Campaign.

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CWRTDC'S AND LGDC'S PREVIOUS MEETING

AT FORT MYER AND VIA ZOOM

JON MEACHAM

presents

"A Sacred Effort: Lincoln's American Theology"

Wednesday, February 8, 2023

in the Grand Ballroom

at Patton Hall Officers' Club at Fort Myer,

214 Jackson Avenue, Arlington, VA  22211

(take the elevator to the right as you enter the building and press Floor 2 or

take the stairs to up two levels)

 

NOTE: MR. MEACHAM'S PRESENTATION WILL BE VIA ZOOM;

OUR JOINT MEETING AND ACTIVITIES WILL BE IN-PERSON

 

About the Topic:

A president who governed a divided country has much to teach us in a twenty-first-century moment of polarization and political crisis. Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when implacable secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. 

At once familiar and elusive, Lincoln tends to be seen as the greatest of American presidents—a remote icon—or as a politician driven more by calculation than by conviction. This illuminating new portrait gives us a very human Lincoln—an imperfect man whose moral antislavery commitment, essential to the story of justice in America, began as he grew up in an antislavery Baptist community; who insisted that slavery was a moral evil; and who sought, as he put it, to do right as God gave him to see the right.

This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier in 1809 to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination in 1865: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end. In a nation shaped by the courage of the enslaved of the era and by the brave witness of Black Americans, Lincoln’s story illustrates the ways and means of politics in a democracy, the roots and durability of racism, and the capacity of conscience to shape events.

From https://www.amazon.com/There-Was-Light-American-Struggle-ebook/dp/B09VYRM2BV?ref_=ast_sto_dp 

About the Speaker:

Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer and the author of the New York Times bestsellers:

        His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope;

        Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush

        Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power; and

        American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

      

Mr. Meacham is the Rogers Chair in the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, a contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, and a fellow of the Society of American Historians.

He lives in Nashville with his wife and children.

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 CWRTDC AND LGDC CO-SPONSORED MEETING

Please mark your calendars to attend a wonderful event at 

Ford's Theatre on February 9, 2023

The Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia, along with the Lincoln Group of DC and other groups, continues its mission of promoting interest in Civil War history (and in Abraham Lincoln scholarship) by co-sponsoring a special evening at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.

On Thursday, February 9, 2023, join the Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions for a discussion with Allen C. Guelzo in association with the newly released 2nd edition of his book, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. Dr. Guelzo will be in conversation with Lincoln Group’s own Lucas Morel of Washington and Lee University and Richard Brookhiser of National Review. The event is free of charge. 

CWRTDC and LGDC members will recall that we co-sponsored a discussion with Allen Guelzo and Michael Burlingame at our February 2022 joint meeting held online that year due to COVID.  A video of that presentation is available at https://cwrtdc-audio.blogspot.com/p/guelzo-burlingame-lincoln.html

Dr. Guelzo returns to Washington, DC just as his book returns in updated and revised form and with a new preface. The original Redeemer President book published in 1999 received numerous accolades, including the prestigious Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. Given the notable participants, this current event will no doubt feature a deep exchange of ideas regarding Lincoln’s views on a variety of subjects and his continued relevance to ongoing American life. All are invited to attend. 

The February 9, 2023 program begins at 7 pm at Ford’s Theatre. Tickets are free but must be obtained in advance via the Ford’s Theatre site: https://www.fords.org/visit/abraham-lincoln-redeemer-president/ or via jmp.princeton.edu/fords

 

Source for information: LGDC’s President David Kent’s post at https://www.lincolnian.org/post/lincoln-group-co-sponsors-allen-guelzo-at-ford-s-theatre

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 JUNETEENTH "LIBERTY CALENDARS" NOW AVAILABLE

As Carl Adams reported at our last meeting, 2023 Juneteenth "Liberty Calendars" are now available!  Almost every day of each month is filled with relevant information about the events associated with the commemoration of Juneteenth, making it a reference that you will not want to discard after the year is over.  Carl provided most of the entries based on his own extensive research.

Sample images of the 11"x17" calendar (when open) are posted HERE (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I-GkCs4na6Zl8VwSZO-6zwY9OL6tyVxt/view)

If you would like a copy, send a requested contribution of $10 (plus $2.50 for postage or a total of $12.50) made payable to Carl Adams to 5407 Huntington Parkway, Bethesda, MD  20814.  And don't forget to include the physical address of where he should mail your calendar. 

If you would like to get additional copies at a volume discount, send a check for a requested contribution of $5 each for 5 or more copies, and the cost of domestic shipping will be included!  Carl plans to send any proceeds to the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation  (http://njof.mypressonline.com/).

If you have any questions, email Carl at carlmadams6@gmail.com

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CWRTDC'S PREVIOUS MEETING

VIA ZOOM

CAROLINE E. JANNEY

discussed 

"An End or a Beginning? Lee's Army after Appomattox"

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 

About the Topic:

Appomattox has long served to mark the end of the American Civil War. Yet closely examining the spring and summer of 1865, reveals a far more contentious, uncertain, ambiguous, and lengthy ending to the American Civil War than previously understood. It underscores the complexity of decisions made by the U.S. army, civilian authorities, and soldiers from Lee’s army as well as the unintended consequences of those decisions. 

Rather than serving as a clear ending to the conflict, the surrender of Confederate forces brought into stark relief many of the legal, social, and political questions that had plagued the war from the beginning. Most importantly, what followed the surrender would offer the first real test of how a democracy might end a civil war.

About the Speaker

Caroline E. Janney is the John L. Nau III Professor of the American Civil War and Director of the John L. Nau Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia. A graduate of the University of Virginia, she worked as a historian for the National Park Service and taught at Purdue University before returning to Virginia in 2018.  

An active public lecturer, Dr. Janney has given presentations at locations across the globe. She is a speaker with the Organization of American Historians’ Distinguished Lectureship program and has appeared numerous television programs including the History Channel’s Grant and Lincoln. She serves as a co-editor of the University of North Carolina Press’s Civil War America Series and is the past president of the Society of Civil War Historians. 

Dr. Janney has published seven books, including Remembering the Civil War: Reunion and the Limits of Reconciliation (2013) and Ends of War: The Fight of Lee’s Army after Appomattox, winner of the 2022 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize.

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CWRTDC'S PREVIOUS MEETING

VIA ZOOM

JIM KELLY

discussed 

"Private Robert Sneden: Soldier, Artist, and Prisoner of War"

About the Topic:

Although never promoted above the rank of private, Robert K. Sneden of the 40th New York (Mozart) Volunteer Regiment was advantageously placed to record much of the Civil War in Virginia because he was valued as a topographical engineer and mapmaker. He kept a diary of the conflict that exceeds 5,000 pages and includes time spent in a series of Confederate prisons, including Andersonville. He populated his diary volumes and supplemental scrapbooks with nearly 1,000 meticulous watercolors. His are the only known views, for example, of the prison at Lawton, Georgia, the location of which was only found a decade ago. 

Sneden’s diary was published as Eye of the Storm in 2000 and was, briefly, the best-selling title on Amazon. Another volume, with annotated pictures only, appeared within a year as Images from the Storm. 

Dr. Kelly did not attempt to cover all the ground in those volumes, but rather summarized Sneden’s experience and achievement, and will add the fascinating story of how the collections were found and acquired, which includes a Southern art dealer, a Connecticut bank vault, a mini-storage unit near Tucson, Arizona, an eccentric owner, and a 90-year-old county historian.  

 

About the Speaker:

Dr. James Kelly received his Ph.D. in history from Vanderbilt University. Currently, he is Chief of Museum Programs for the U.S. Army, headquartered at Fort Belvoir. He supervises the replacement of old with new exhibits at the Army’s 40 plus museums at home and abroad.  Dr. Kelly was previously the Director of the Tennessee American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and the Chief Curator of the Tennessee State Museum, and Assistant Director for Museums at the Virginia Historical Society. He is a past Chairman of the Curators Committee of the American Alliance of Museums. Six exhibitions Dr. Kelly curated won the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History. 

Among Dr. Kelly's publications are Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement (1993), The Virginia Landscape: A Cultural History (2000), and Jamestown, Quebec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings (2007).  When at the Virginia Historical Society, Dr. Kelly acquired the Civil War scrapbooks and diaries of Private Robert K. Sneden, which is the topic of his talk.  

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 CWRTDC'S PREVIOUS MEETING

VIA ZOOM

GARY GALLAGHER

discussed 

"Reflections on the Enduring Civil War of 2022"

Wednesday, December 14, 2022 

About the Topic:

This lecture examined contemporary understanding of the Civil War—both popular and academic—with an eye toward how mid-19th-century perceptions align with, or deviate from, current ideas regarding the origins, conduct, and aftermath of the conflict. Topics included the tension between history and memory, the ways in which current politics can shape historical analysis, and the tenacity of conventional interpretations that deviate from the historical record.

About the Speaker:

Gary W. Gallagher is the John L. Nau III Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Virginia. He has written or edited more than 40 books on the Civil War era, most recently The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis (2020) and Catton: The Army of the Potomac Trilogy (2022; edited for The Library of America). Long active in the field of historic preservation, he was a founder and first president of The Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, the forerunner of The American Battlefield Trust.

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CWRTDC'S PREVIOUS MEETING

AT FORT MYER AND VIA ZOOM

FERGUS BORDEWICH

discussed 

"Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle To Save Reconstruction"

Tuesday, December 6, 2022 

About the Topic:

Mr. Bordewich posts on his blog at http://www.fergusbordewich.com/blog/?tag=civil-war:

One of the most virtuous public men I have ever known  . . . was Nathaniel Lee Hawthorne. He was a World War II veteran who served in a racially segregated unit and was badly wounded in the Italian campaign. When I met him in 1967, he was the county chairman of the NAACP. I was a college kid helping him to register disenfranchised African-American voters. He was threatened, harassed, shot at, and accused of crimes he never committed. His rectitude was quiet but unbreachable. He also possessed extraordinary physical courage. One day, he walked into the middle of a Ku Klux Klan rally on the steps of the county court house to prove that African Americans weren’t afraid of them. (I know all this because I was with him that day.) If ever a man had reason to despair of his country it was Hawthorne. But he believed fiercely in it, and ... he also believed in the moral fortitude of his fellow men. He was, in every respect, a gentleman. 

Mr. Bordewich's presentation will discuss the events that occurred during the Grant presidency that were similar to, and different from, from the events faced by Mr. Hawthorne, as a preview for his upcoming book on the topic scheduled to be released next year.

 

About the Speaker:

Fergus M. Bordewich is the author of seven non-fiction books, including: 

Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought The Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, And Remade America
America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise that Preserved the Union; 
Washington: The Making of the American Capital; 
Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America; and  

Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century

Mr. Bordewich is a frequent book reviewer for the Wall Street Journal and other popular and scholarly periodicals, mostly on subjects in 18th and 19th century American history. He has published an illustrated children's book, Peach Blossom Spring (Simon & Schuster, 1994), and wrote the script for a PBS documentary about Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Jefferson's University. He also edited an illustrated book of eyewitness accounts of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Children of the Dragon (Macmillan, 1990).

 

Mr. Bordewich has been an independent historian and writer since the early 1970s. In 2015, he served as chairman of the awards committee for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, given by the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, at Yale University. He is a frequent public speaker at universities and other forums, as well as on radio and television. His articles have appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, American Heritage, Atlantic, Harper's, New York Magazine, GEO, and Reader's Digest.

 

As a journalist, Mr. Bordewich traveled extensively in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, writing on politics, economic issues, culture, and history, on subjects ranging from the civil war in Burma, religious repression in China, Islamic fundamentalism, German reunification, the Irish economy, Kenya's population crisis, among many others. He also served for brief periods as an editor and writer for the Tehran Journal in Iran, in 1972-1973, a press officer for the United Nations, in 1980-1982, and an advisor to the New China News Agency in Beijing, in 1982-1983, when that agency was embarking on its effort to switch from a propaganda model to a western-style journalistic one.

 

Mr. Bordewich was born in New York City in 1947, and grew up in Yonkers, New York. While growing up, he often traveled to Indian reservations around the United States with his mother, LaVerne Madigan Bordewich, the executive director of the Association on American Indian Affairs, then the only independent advocacy organization for Tribal Nations. This early experience helped to shape his lifelong preoccupation with American history, the settlement of the continent, and issues of race, and political power.

 

In the late 1960s, Mr. Bordewich conducted voter registration for the NAACP in the still-segregated South; he also worked as a roustabout in Alaska's Arctic oil fields, a taxi driver in New York City, and a deckhand on a Norwegian freighter.

 

Mr. Bordewich holds degrees from the City College of New York and Columbia University. He recently moved from San Francisco, CA and now lives in DC with his wife, Jean Parvin Bordewich. 

 

For additional information about Mr. Bordewich and his books, visit: http://www.fergusbordewich.com

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