CWRT-DC's Previous Meeting:

MICHAEL A. ROSS

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

at Ft. McNair Officers' Club, Washington, DC (see map here) 

6 pm: Social Hour (cash bar)
7 pm: Dinner ($36 for dinner and lecture)
8 pm: Lecture ($5 for lecture only)

Reservations required: Email (preferred) to susankclaffey@cwrtdc.org

 or call (202) 306-4988 by 5:00 pm, Thursday, February 4th. Or make reservations through our Meetup Page by clicking HERE.

TOPIC: 

The Reconstruction
& American Memory

About The Topic: 

It is often said that the South “lost the war, but won the peace.”  One way it did so was by winning the fight over how Reconstruction Era was remembered. In books, poems, songs, and films like Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind, the white South convinced many Americans that Reconstruction (the post-war effort by the federal government to bring a new social, political, and economic order to the states of the old Confederacy) was a “tragic era” when “carpetbaggers,” “scalawags,” and “ignorant” former slaves corruptly used power for personal gain.  How and when did the South’s version of events become the defining one? When and why did this change? And why does the contested memory of Reconstruction still haunt America today? 

In his talk, Michael Ross will answer these questions and discuss how the nation’s historical memory of Reconstruction has shaped our understanding of the meaning of the Civil War itself.

About the Speaker: 

Michael Ross is a specialist in American Constitutional History, U.S. Nineteenth Century History, and the Civil War and Reconstruction Eras. He is currently a Professor of History at the University of Maryland at College Park where he specializes in the Civil War Era and U.S. Legal History. 

He is the author of two prize-winning books: Justice of Shattered Dreams: Samuel Freeman Miller and Supreme Court during the Civil War Era (LSU Press 2003) and The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era (Oxford University Press, Fall 2014).  His first book is a biography of one of the most important justices on the post-bellum Supreme Court. It won the George Tyler Moore Civil War Center's Seaborg Award for Civil War Non-Fiction and the Association of American Jesuit College and Universities Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award. 

His second book is the story of a sensational 1870 trial that riveted the South during one of the most pivotal moments in the history of U.S. race relations. It received favorable reviews in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other periodicals, was a selection of the History Book Club, and won the 2014 Kemper Williams Prize and the 2014 New Orleans Public Library Foundation Choice Award for Non-Fiction. 

Professor Ross has also written numerous articles in academic journals, four of which have won “best article” prizes, including the Southern Historical Association's Fletcher M. Green and Charles Ramsdell Award. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Supreme Court History and has served as historical advisor to the United States Mint.  Professor Ross has twice delivered Silverman lectures at the United States Supreme Court.

Before joining the Maryland faculty, Professor Ross taught at Loyola University in New Orleans for ten years. He holds a law degree from Duke University and earned a Ph.D. in History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

For more information about Professor Ross, visit http://history.umd.edu/users/maross  


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Rebecca Koenig

The Round Table is pleased to announce a new feature to its monthly meetings: a short opening presentation about new research in the field of Civil War history. 

This month, the Round Table will be welcoming and introducing Rebecca Koenig, a reporter for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a national daily news outlet that covers the nonprofit sector.  Ms. Koenig studied English and early American history at the College of William & Mary, where she received the Lord Botetourt Medal, awarded to the senior most distinguished in scholarship.  

Ms. Koenig will speak about her paper based on research conducted in the summer of 2011 using a William & Mary academic grant.  An excerpt of her paper, "Interpreting Race, Slavery, and Servanthood At Urban Antebellum House Museums," was published in the James Blair Historical Review (2, no. 2011 (2011), 69-89).

Additional information about Ms. Koenig is available at http://rebeccalkoenig.com/ 

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For information about the Round Table and to apply for membership, see the Tab above marked "About Us/ Membership Information" or click HERE 

CWRT-DC's Previous Meeting:

CHRIS GODART

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

at Ft. McNair Officers' Club, Washington, DC (see map here) 

6 pm: Social Hour (cash bar)
7 pm: Dinner ($36 for dinner and lecture)
8 pm: Lecture ($5 for lecture only)

Reservations required: Email (preferred) to susankclaffey@cwrtdc.org
 or call (202) 306-4988 by 5:00 pm, Thursday, January 7rd. Or make reservations through our Meetup Page by clicking HERE.

TOPIC: 
General Ewell at Gettysburg

About The Topic: 
Richard Ewell was born in February 1817 and grew up near Manassas, Virginia. He secured an appointment to the USMA at West Point in 1836 and graduated with the class of 1840. On graduation, Lt. Ewell chose the Dragoons and was assigned to the 1st US Dragoons. Except for the Mexican War and duties as a recruiting officer, Ewell would spend the better part of the next twenty years on the western frontier.

When his home state of Virginia seceded from the Union, he resigned his commission and offered his services to the Confederacy. He was given the rank of Lt Colonel, but quickly moved up the ranks to Brigadier General in June 1861 and Major General in Jan 1862 and was given command of a division and assigned to the Army of the Valley with Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. With the Shenandoah Valley secured in mid 1862, General Ewell and General Jackson's men first moved to Richmond and then north to the Manassas Junction area near the rear of the enemy. This march culminated in the Second Battle of Manassas on August 28. 

At Groveton, Gen. Ewell was wounded in the knee and had his left leg amputated.  He recuperated under the care of his first cousin, Lizinka Campbell Brown, whom he eventually married in May 1863. Shortly after informing Gen. Lee that he was fit to return to duty, Stonewall Jackson died and, after reorganizing the Army of Northern Virginia into three Corps, Gen. Lee promoted Ewell to LtGen and appointed him successor to Gen. Jackson as Commander of the II Corps. 

On July 1, 1863, Ewell's Corps approached Gettysburg from the north and smashed two Union Corps, driving them back through the town and forcing them to take up defensive positions on Cemetery Hill south of town.  Gen. Lee had just arrived on the field and saw the importance of this position. He sent discretionary orders to Ewell that Cemetery Hill be taken "if practicable." Gen. Ewell chose not to attempt the assault (for which he has been criticized ever since).  Ewell remained Commander of the II Corps until mid 1864 when his health forced Gen. Lee to transfer him from corps command to become responsible for the defense of Richmond.

In 1865, during the retreat toward Appomattox, Ewell commanded a mixed corps of soldiers, sailors and marines. Surrounded and forced to surrender at Sayler's Creek, he was imprisoned and taken to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. 

After his release from the prison, Ewell moved to his wife's plantation in Maury County, Tennessee, where he died of pneumonia on January 25, 1872, just five days after Lizinka succumbed to the same illness. 

"A truer and nobler spirit never drew sword," proclaimed General Longstreet.

About the Speaker: 
Chris Godart has been interested in the Civil War for about 25 years. His interest in educating others about the conflict between the states led him to join "Lee's Lieutenants" (see http://www.leeslieutenants.com)  and because of his resemblance to "Old Baldy," the suggestion was made for him to portray Gen. Ewell.  

Mr. Godart has been a high school and college soccer coach.   He was Head Coach at Catholic University (Washington D.C.) for 10 years.  He coached soccer at Oakton, Lee, and Westfield High Schools in Virginia. His teams appeared in eight district titles (winning seven), four regional finals (winning one) and three state championships (winning the State Championship in 1990 with an undefeated record of 20-0-0).  Mr. Godart has received the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Coach of the year award for the South region, and he was named the Washington Post All-Metropolitan Coach of the Year.  

Mr. Godart has served as President of the Northern Region Soccer Coaches Association and was recognized by the Fairfax Virginia Board of Supervisors in 2009 for his outstanding record of service.  

Mr. Godart currently is a Technology Specialist for the Fairfax County Public School system in Virginia and serves a docent at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.  

Mr. Godart lives a short drive from General Ewell’s boyhood home.  His website as General Ewell is http://www.leeslieutenants.com/profiles/Ewell.html.

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For information about the Round Table and to apply for membership, see the Tab above marked "About Us/ Membership Information" or click HERE

CWRT-DC's Previous Meeting:

DAVID O. STEWART

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

at Ft. McNair Officers' Club, Washington, DC (see map here) 

6 pm: Social Hour (cash bar)
7 pm: Dinner ($30 for dinner and lecture)
8 pm: Lecture ($5 for lecture only)

Reservations required: Email (preferred) to susankclaffey@cwrtdc.org
 or call (202) 306-4988 by 5:00 pm, December 3rd. Or make reservations through our Meetup Page by clicking HERE.

TOPIC: 
The Impeachment of President Johnson

About The Topic:  In 1868 Congress impeached President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the man who had succeeded the murdered Lincoln, bringing the nation to the brink of a second civil war. Enraged to see the freed slaves abandoned to brutal violence at the hands of their former owners, distraught that former rebels threatened to regain control of Southern state governments, and disgusted by Johnson's brawling political style, congressional Republicans seized on a legal technicality as the basis for impeachment - whether Johnson had the legal right to fire his own secretary of war, Edwin Stanton. The fiery but mortally ill Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania led the impeachment drive, abetted behind the scenes by the military hero and president-in-waiting, General Ulysses S. Grant. The Senate trial featured the most brilliant lawyers of the day, along with some of the least scrupulous, while leading political fixers maneuvered in dark corners to save Johnson's presidency with political deals, promises of patronage jobs, and even cash bribes. Johnson escaped conviction by a single vote.

David Stewart, the author of the highly acclaimed The Summer of 1787, the bestselling account of the writing of the Constitution, challenges the traditional version of this pivotal moment in American history. Rather than seeing Johnson as Abraham Lincoln's political heir, Stewart explains how the Tennessean squandered Lincoln's political legacy of equality and fairness and helped force the freed slaves into a brutal form of agricultural peonage across the South. When the clash between Congress and president threatened to tear the nation apart, the impeachment process substituted legal combat forviolent confrontation.  Both sides struggled to inject meaning into the baffling requirement that a president be removed only for "high crimes and misdemeanors," while employing devious courtroom gambits, backstairs spies, and soaring rhetoric. When the dust finally settled, the impeachment process had allowed passions to cool sufficiently for the nation to survive the bitter crisis."  With the dramatic expansion of the powers of the presidency, and after two presidential impeachment crises in the last forty years, the lessons of the first presidential impeachment are more urgent than ever.

Reprinted from Barnes & Noble website, at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1100366243;jsessionid=4A26B96959D1167C3FD75F6669252E1D.prodny_store02-atgap07#productInfoTabs

About Our Speaker:  After practicing law for many years, David O. Stewart began to write history, too.  His first book, The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution, was a Washington Post bestseller and won the Washington Writing Award as Best Book of 2007.  Two years later, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy, was called “by all means the best account of this troubled episode” by Professor David Donald of Harvard.  The Society of the Cincinnati awarded David its 2013  History Prize for American Emperor, Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America, an examination of Burr’s Western expedition, which shook the nation’s early foundations.  The Lincoln Deception, an historical mystery about the John Wilkes Booth Conspiracy, was released in late August 2013.  Bloomberg View called it the best historical novel of the year, while Publishers Weekly said it was an “impressive debut novel.”   Madison’s Gift:  Five Partnerships That Built America, was released in February, 2015.  The Washington Post called it a portrait “rich in empathy and understanding” by “an acknowledged master of narrative history.” His second novel, The Wilson Deception, set at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, was released in late September, 2015.  Publishers Weekly said of it that “Stewart deftly depicts the mood of an era and the colorful figures who shaped it.”  In November, David will receive the Prescott Award for excellence in historical writing from the National Society of Colonial Dames of America.  He also is president of the Washington Independent Review of Books, an online book review.

For a full bio, visit: http://davidostewart.com/about-david/   

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For information about the Round Table and to apply for membership, see the Tab above marked "About Us/ Membership Information" or click HERE

CWRT-DC's Previous Meeting:

HARRY BULKELEY

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

at Ft. McNair Officers' Club, Washington, DC (see map here) 

6 pm: Social Hour (cash bar)
7 pm: Dinner ($30 for dinner and lecture)
8 pm: Lecture ($5 for lecture only)

Reservations required: Email (preferred) to susankclaffey@cwrtdc.org 
or call (202) 306-4988 by noon, November 6th. 
Or make reservations through our Meetup Page by clicking HERE.

TOPIC:
"GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT"

About The Topic and Speaker: 
(Excerpted from Chicago CWRT website (Feb.10, 2012)

Ulysses S. Grant demonstrated what might be called the Peter Principle in reverse: he couldn’t handle small jobs, but give him a huge task like saving the Union, and he performed marvelously well.

Grant’s story is one of great abilities, hidden and undiscovered until a vast war brought them out. And not merely abilities as a general. His memoirs, completed just prior to his death, are rightly regarded as one of the best memoirs ever written by a historical figure.

Harry Bulkeley is known for his oneman show “I Intend to Fight It Out” about General Ulysses S. Grant.  He narrates episodes in his life, changing uniforms as the story unfolds. Bulkeley says he tries to provide an insight into Grant as a man. “For too many people, General Grant has become a caricature. My presentation tries to explain more about the man himself. He was during his life perhaps the most admired living American of the 19th century. I want the audience to know why.”

Harry Bulkeley and his wife Barbara live in an old Victorian house a block and a half from where he was born in Galesburg, IL. About eight years ago he retired after serving as a Circuit Court judge for 24 years. Since retirement, they have spent time traveling, including visiting their three daughters who live in New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco.

Judge Bulkeley has always been interested in the Civil War. About fifteen years ago he developed an interest in Grant. “I grew a beard for the first reenactment I ever attended—as a Confederate!” When I got home, I was reading a biography of the general when I noticed the physical resemblance.” After portraying Grant at several national events, Bulkeley appeared as the title character in “Ulysses Grant: Warrior- President” for the PBS series American Experience. A few years later he was in “Sherman’s March” on The History Channel. In 2012, he played Grant in the new film for the visitors’ center at the Shiloh National Battlefield Park.

Judge Bulkeley's website on his General Grant persona is here:  http://meetgeneralgrant-com.webs.com/

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For information about the Round Table and to apply for membership, see the Tab above marked "About Us/ Membership Information" or click HERE

CWRT-DC's Previous Meeting:

ED BEARSS

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

at Ft. McNair Officers' Club, Washington, DC (see map here) 

6 pm: Social Hour (cash bar)
7 pm: Dinner ($30 for dinner and lecture)
8 pm: Lecture ($5 for lecture only)

Reservations required: Email (preferred) to susankclaffey@cwrtdc.org or call (202) 306-4988 by noon, Oct. 9th. Or make reservations through our Meetup Page by clicking HERE.

TOPIC:
"Generals North & South—The Best, Worst and Most Interesting"

About The Topic:  A rare treat is in store for us this month as the one and only Ed Bearss will be sharing his picks with us for the best, worst, and most interesting generals who wore the Blue and the Gray. Come join the fun and see if your picks match those of the master of all things Civil War. It is sure to be a most interesting and informative evening!

About Our Speaker:  Edwin Cole (Ed) Bearss needs no introduction to this round table or to most Civil War enthusiasts. He is a world-renowned military historian, author, and tour guide known for his work on the history of the Civil War and World War II.  We are gratified to have him as our lifetime honorary member, yearly speaker, and chosen leader for our field trips and tours.

Ed is the author of numerous books including the definitive three volume series, “The Vicksburg Campaign.” He is a tireless advocate of Civil War preservation, donating his time to many organizations and activities involved with that mission, including serving on the board of the Civil War Trust. Among his many honors, Ed was named by the Smithsonian Magazine as one of its “35 Who Made A Difference.” Since 2005, the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia has recognized Ed’s contributions by making an annual “Ed Bearss Award” to a preservation cause of his choosing. To date, the Ed Bearss Award has provided more than $10,000 to worthy--many times little known--Civil War preservation efforts.

Ed has worked as a historian at Vicksburg National Military Park where he conducted research leading him and two friends to the long-lost Union gunboat the U.S.S. Cairo. He also located two forgotten forts at Grand Gulf, Mississippi.  Ed rose in the National Park Service (NPS) to the post of regional historian and is recognized as more knowledgeable on the Civil War battlefields than virtually anyone else. During his time with the NPS, Ed led efforts for researching, preserving, and interpreting Pea Ridge; Wilson’s Creek; Fort Smith; Stones River, Fort Donelson; the battlefields around Richmond, Fort Moultrie and Fort Point among many others. Ed was named Chief Historian of the National Park Service in 1981, a position he held until 1994. He also served as special assistant to the NPS director from 1994 to 1995. After his retirement in 1995, Ed received the title Chief Historian Emeritus, which he holds to this day. 

Ed’s abundance of awards and honors are too numerous to mention. Some of the more recent include:  the 2014 DAR Medal of Honor; the Douglas Southall Freeman Award for 2014 in honor of his book entitled “The Petersburg Campaign” recognized as the best published book of high merit in the field of Southern history; and the Lincoln Forum’s Richard Nelson Current Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.  In addition, the Civil War Trust has established its annual lifetime achievement award in Ed’s name.

Currently there is a bill pending in Congress (H.R. 2059) sponsored by Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA), to recognize Ed, and he may soon receive a new accolade to add to an already lengthy resume: Congressional Gold Medal recipient.

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For information about the Round Table and to apply for membership, see the Tab above marked "About Us/ Membership Information" or click HERE