Symposium only six weeks away

It seems like the Rocky Mountain Civil War symposium has snuck up on me this year. That's mostly because I'm not as involved this year as in previous years, especially last year. I knew my involvement would have to be severely curtailed with a baby at home. Some days it seems that getting anything accomplished at home is a big accomplishment, then other days multi tasking with a baby is a breeze. So I'm glad I don't have any symposium worries to also attend to. I'm sure next year I'll take on a few more tasks for the symposium but it might be awhile til I'm back to my normal workload.

In any case this is going to be a wonderful event that I'm glad to be attending. Although I work at every event (some more than others) I go to hear the speakers. Each year has had quite a good group, and this year is no exception. This year the theme is the making of Ulysses S. Grant as a commander.

There need to be a few battle themed presentations to show the growth of Grant and some of the obstacles he faced. The two battles picked were Shiloh and Vicksburg. Shiloh because it is really Grant's first major battle. Not disrespecting Fort Donelson but Shiloh is a much bigger battle. Vicksburg shows Grant overcoming many obstacles and growing as a leader to achieve one of the more important victories of the war. In my mind the top Shiloh authors are James Lee McDonough, Tim Smith, Larry Daniel and Wiley Sword. There are others of course but if we're looking to secure a major Shiloh historian these are the four I think of first. McDonough and Smith have spoken at previous symposiums and Sword will join them this year. Shiloh is my main interest so having had the opportunity to hear from three of the top Shiloh historians over the past few years is a real treat and hopefully we'll be able to get Daniels out in the future.

A large number of prominent historians have explored Vicksburg, especially recently it seems like Vicksburg is getting its due more and more. I'm excited that John Marszalek will cover this campaign for the symposium. I know Marszalek from his Sherman work but he is also now the Executive Director and Managing Editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, taking the reins after the departure of John Y. Simon. I'm sure his intimate access to Grant's papers will allow him to bring a unique perspective on Grant's handling of the campaign. Also Grant's papers have now been put online which is a fabulous researching tool.

Then its important to discuss Grant's work as general-in-chief. The two battle presentations have shown his growth as a commander so its only logical to have a presentation that covers the final year of the war when Grant had an impact on the entire war effort. Gordon C. Rhea seems like a great fit for this as his books covering the the 1864 Virginia Overland campaign are an incredible series, and Grant's impact is covered in each one. I'm not sure who better could fill this role.

At each symposium we have a presentation that doesn't follow the normal pace of battles. At the first event covering the Western Theater through Stones River it was a biography of Alexander Stewart, done by Sam Davis Elliott. Last year the theme was Lee's two Northern invasions and the extra presentation covered the differing methods of preservation utilized at Antietam and Gettysburg, by Tim Smith. This year the extra talk will be about the relationship between Grant and Rawlins by Peter Cozzens, another top notch Western theater historian.

Finally there needs to be an overview of Grant. There are a ton of biographers to pick from but my personal favorite is Brooks Simpson. One of my favorite books is his "Let Us Have Peace" which covers Grant's understanding of the politics of war. It changed my view of Grant as a commander and put me well onto the path that Grant's genius had more to do with winning the war than it being simply a matter of numbers. The first stories many of us read make it out that the Confederacy generally had better generals but that they lost due to the quantity of men the North could muster into service. Now I know that the Union was equal in quality as well, just suffered early in the war when its lesser talented generals faced the best the Confederacy had to offer (think Lee versus Pope at Second Manassas or Jackson in the Valley).

So the final panel consists of Brooks Simpson, Peter Cozzens, Wiley Sword, John Marszalek, and Gordon Rhea. Any one of them individually would be enough to entice me to attend the symposium, but having them all at one event makes this year a must see event (though to be fair there has not been one presentation previously that I did not want to see).

The day will end with a panel discussion and time for books to be signed. As always there will be a book room with a ton of good books and deals. I'll have a blog post showing all of the great books in a week or so. I saw the list the other day and was impressed with the variety of books. There is only one so far I want to get but that's because I already own every other book that will be there.

Tickets will be $50 again, which also includes a continental breakfast and lunch. Click here to order your tickets today. Tickets are selling at double the pace of last year. We're in a pretty big auditorium so I don't anticipate it being a sold out event but you should order your tickets today so that you do not run that risk.

If you have any questions please contact us at RockyMtnCWRT at aol dot com.

Cleburne

This Thursday I'll be giving a presentation on Patrick Cleburne at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table. I'm filling in last minute for another presenter who cannot make it. I gave this presentation about five years ago so hopefully people won't be upset that its a repeat. But I'll change a few things, alter the focus a bit from the first time. I think Cleburne is a fascinating character. So if you're in the area come on by and catch my presentation.

Shiloh maps

This week I've been working on a Shiloh presentation I'm doing for the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table on December 10th. Its on the Crossroads, I'll be covering Sherman and McClernand's area from the first strike in the 53rd Ohio's camp thru the withdrawal after the noon counterattack. The round table is doing a theme lately of focusing on a small aspect of a battle. Last month was the Sunken Road at Antietam, earlier in the year was the Wheatfield of Gettysburg. I think there are others coming up but do not remember right now what they might be.

So the last few days I've been working on my maps. I scanned in the park service brochure and then edited out all the modern stuff I didn't want, like tour stops and modern names for roads. Then using the Trailhead Graphics map I put on the locations of every marker and monument. Its not perfect as the scale is different but I put each one as close as I could, and since no one is going to use my map in the field it does not need to be 100% accurate. For all the maps I used the marker's numeric designation. Later I'll either add a legend or will change the numbers to regimental designations.

First I have a map showing all the Union camp sites and I've added the brigade commanders' names and drawn lines to show how each brigade was scattered, or kept together as the case might be.



Then I made a map showing only the markers for this fighting, and my time frame only.




Then I made a map with the monuments for all the units involved. I would like to add the monuments to the markers map too but I think it will be too cluttered in this scale.

Then I made maps with just Union and Confederate positions, these versions don't show monuments but I think I have the space to add them. I also made versions that only show the positions for each division and each brigade but those are more for sorting my own notes.

This is the Union version:

And the Confederate:

Future ideas for the maps:

1) Depending on how cluttered it is, so it might be a divisional level map, draw a line between positions each regiment held so that you could clearly see where they moved to.

2) Make a map for each distinct time period that shows positions for both sides. I will be doing these, still fine tuning how many maps and the times represented.

At the actual presentation I will probably pass out a small packet of the maps (probably about 4) and then use the projector to show many more maps as I talk. So I'm willing to make a ton of maps because I know I don't have to print every single one.

I posted this early look at my maps with the hope my readers would offer some input on the whole deal.

Civil War News: Round Table Review

Last night my mail included the September issue of Civil War News. As a book reviewer for them I'm always excited to see the new issue. Yesterday though I knew that the Round Table Review column by Matthew Borowick would focus on the Rocky Mountain Civil War Round Table. Its a great story, a very large one too. We're on page 10.

The column focuses on our annual study group, which is a great project we do. I'm always excited for the next study. We haven't decided what is next and I'm already excited to do that study and make the field trip. Last time I missed the field trip, the first time we've been doing it that I missed the trip.

Borowick also included a section on the upcoming symposium, which was nice of him to include since it was outside of the main focus of his article.

John Brown Presentation

Last night I did a presentation on John Brown for the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable as part of our series on the causes of the war. I was a little nervous at first that it wouldn't go as smoothly as I'd want. Unlike other presentations I just didn't feel like a Brown expert. I've read some books and hit the internet but I didn't feel 100% confident that I knew it all. But it turned out well. I thought it was a little short, just under an hour when other presentations lately seem to hit 90 minutes, but the few people I talked to about that issue were kinda glad that it was an hour long. Later I realized there was one fact I left out of the presentation but it was a minor piece of the battle of Black Jack so it was not a big deal.

My presentation focused on Bleeding Kansas and Harper's Ferry. For Bleeding Kansas it boiled down to Pottawatomie and Black Jack. I also did brief segments on his life before 1855 and the Secret Six who gave him the financial backing to do what he did those last 4 years of his life. I was a little disappointed in the resources in general because there were questions that were never really answered. I could never get a good number of how many men Brown fought against at Black Jack. One source said he faced 29 to 750 odds, others just said he was outnumbered. How could he win a battle facing those odds, plus capture 25 men? I think he faced odds of 29 to 40-50 and a dozen or so deserted during the fighting. I could never get a handle on whether he was a good business man with bad luck or a bad business man. Some said he was a failure at everything he tried, but others said he suffered as much as others from the various financial panics that hit the country, but that when the country went well so did Brown. It seemed that Brown gets a new biography every year or so, I bet he ranks up there with Lee and Lincoln as the most written about Civil War era personalities. That's a help and a hindrance because some of those books are pure garbage, or offer very little new to the topic.

And because I can't do a post without sharing some pictures, here are some pictures of Harper's Ferry. I have not been to Black Jack (add it to my to do list) so this is all I can share right now. If you click on the first picture you will be able to read the labels I have added to the picture. It points out where John Brown's Fort was in 1859 and where it is now. Unless you have really great vision you probably cannot read it on this page but if you click on it a larger version will load and you should have no problem.

Roundtable

Last night for the first time in 8 years I attended a roundtable meeting where I wasn't asked questions about the newsletter. It was kinda weird not being the point man for questions about the group. I was just a normal member. Maybe not entirely normal as I'm still involved in other roundtable activities that the average member is not, like the symposium. It was nice not doing the newsletter, I didn't really miss it at all. I was able to use my time to edit my manuscript on Chattanooga, I'm now halfway through that. Its been a little while since I've had time to work on it so it was nice to get back to it. Also being away from the project gave me some perspective on the manuscript and I had an idea the other night that I think will make the whole thing read better and be stronger. With the holidays coming up I doubt I'll get too much done on it but my goal right now is to have it ready to mail to publishers on January 1st. That's my goal and I'm going to try to stick to it.

Recently I was posting some Shiloh tablets on Historical Marker Database and going back over my Shiloh manuscript gave me an idea of how to improve my Chickamauga maps. Not sure if my recent burst of creativity and productivity is a result of having fewer roundtable responsibilities but it does feel good to get these projects moving forward again.

Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable Newsletter

A few nights ago I wrote my last newsletter for the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable. I'd been trying to find a replacement for the last few months and was able this month to end my time as newsletter editor. I started this job 8 years ago with the October 2000 issue so it actually was kinda nice that this month became my last issue, 8 full years. It does though leave me with 97 issues, my wife suggested maybe I should do it three more months to hit the 100 mark, but 97 is a good tally too.

When I took over the newsletter it was simply a one page, two-sided issue. I kept that format for awhile but eventually I increased it to 4 pages and finally to 6 pages. I leave this post with a little sadness. After 8 years this has kinda become my baby. Every month, no matter what else is going on in my life, I've written a newsletter. Some have suffered due to a lack of time. Some have been fairly good, things I'm proud to have my name attached to.

As for me I'll be using the new free time to do more improvement projects on my house, take care of my son, and of course spend more time with my wonderful wife.

In my final newsletter I shared two personal stories and I'd like to share them with you too. My wife is not a Civil War buff, not at all. She humors me but this is not her passion like it is for me. So when we were picking paint colors for our new house she said that she didn't want to do any decorating for the Civil War. But then she picked blue and gray as the main paint colors. After the walls were painted I pointed out that the two main sides wore blue and gray. To this day she says I tricked her.

My mother got my wife a small book on the Civil War, just general facts that are mostly correct for the beginner. Mom got it as a joke. My son really liked the pictures on the front and wanted me to read it to him. I thought it wouldn't be anything he'd like but I read him the page on John Brown. It was the first page I opened to. He now loves John Brown. Nearly every night long after he's gone to bed he'll come out of his room, find us and yell "John Brown!" Since then I've tried to expand his knowledge with Lee or Sherman but John Brown has stayed his favorite.

In recent months he's started coming to meetings. He talks about these meetings all Thursday. On Fridays he tells his mother all about "his meeting." He thinks all of the roundtable members are his friends, I'm now secondary at the meetings. At each meeting he opens up a bit more with the other guys too. At the first one he was my shadow. At his most recent one he spent more time following our president around than he did with me. At first I was worried about bringing him but he keeps pretty quiet, his only complaint is that no one ever brings a picture of John Brown.

Army Command

Last night at the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable we had an interesting meeting about command changes. The presenter followed the Army of Northern Virginia and the various command changes, the cycle of promotions and transfers, etc. He also had a breakdown of the commanders, such as age, experience, state affiliation, etc. I thought is was fascinating and was thinking of doing something similar for the Western armies. And in my manner of overdoing it I think it'd really be useful to do both sides, plus with the way the armies of the west moved around I think you'd almost have to do it by department not just by army. My question for my loyal readers is how should I approach the reorganizations that completely redo the composition of the brigades? For instance when Bragg does his reshuffling of the army after Chickamauga he transfers regiments out of brigades. So New Brigade A might now have two regiments from Old Brigade A, one from B and 3 from C. I haven't examined this in detail yet so not sure exactly how much change we're looking at but I know it did happen. In any respect I think it would be a fun project and even if it didn't become a roundtable presentation I think it would be a useful bit of research to have available for future use.

Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable

I have created a new blog dedicated specifically to the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable, http://rmcwrt.blogspot.com/. I have included the symposium recaps over there. There will probably only be 1 or 2 posts a week over there, mainly announcements of upcoming events plus recaps of meetings. That means unless it directly pertains to me I will not post roundtable news on this blog anymore. If there is something especially worthwhile there I will probably give it some publicity here but that's about it.

Symposium Update

We're closing in the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable's symposium. As I've mentioned before we've got good slate of presenters:
James Lee McDonough providing a Western Theater overview
Timothy Smith covering Shiloh
Kenneth Noe talking about Perryville
Matt Spruill discussing Stones River
Sam Davis Elliott presenting Alexander Stewart

We've been busy this past few weeks with last minute details. I've been pleasantly surprised with the increase in phone calls and emails about the event. I'll admit that a month ago I was starting to wonder if this might be a huge flop, but this past week I've fielded a ton of questions about the symposium. And its been questions like "where can I send my money?" These people will be there. And some of them are coming a great distance. I think some people are driving upwards of 12 hours to come to this. Now I hope it does well enough that we decide this will be an annual event. If the recent batch of new registrations is any indication this just might be an annual event.

If you're interested send me an email or a comment and I'll get some info out to you. Some forms are available on this blog, look at the right side of the screen in the section called files.

Hope to see you there.

Roundtable Meeting - December 13

The next Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable meeting is December 13, 2007. Member Chuck Wheeler will be talking about the battles at North Anna and Cold Harbor in the spring of 1864.

After the fighting at Spotsylvania Court House, Grant continued his drive towards Richmond. The next clash was a relatively minor affair along the North Anna River. Lee had a pretty good defensive position and ended up missing a chance to strike a heavy blow to Grant. Once Grant realized the threat he pulled back the separated wings of his army. He would again move by the left flank.

The next point of contact was at Cold Harbor. This vital crossroads was seized on May 31 by Sheridan’s cavalry. Over the next few days the rest of the armies converged on this point, eventually settling into a seven mile front.

Richmond was nearby and Grant thought one big battle might force the capture of that city. The capture of Richmond itself was not greatly important but the city was a supply center that kept Lee’s army in the field. If that was captured then Lee would have a hard time continuing the fight.

At dawn on June 3 Grant launched a frontal assault that only succeeded in making huge casualty lists. He later wrote that this was the only attack he wished he had never ordered. A stalemate continued here for over a week before Grant again began his move by the left flank, this time with plans of crossing the James River and capturing Petersburg.

Chuck recommends the following books:
Grant and Lee: the Virginia Campaigns 1864-65 by William A Frassanito
Not War But Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 by Ernest B. Furgurson
The Virginia Campaign 1864 and 1865 by Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys
To the North Anna River: May 13-25, 1864 by Gordon C. Rhea
Cold Harbor: May 26 - June 3, 1864 by Gordon C. Rhea
Bloody Roads South: May-June 1864 by Noah Andre Trudeau

Rocky Mtn CWRT Meeting

Tomorrow night is the next meeting of the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable. Former president Dave Townsend will be talking about The Wilderness as part of our "Campaigning with Grant" series.

In the spring of 1864, President Lincoln brought Grant east to fill the newly created rank of Lt General and placed in charge of all Union forces. Although Grant had been successful in the west, he never actively sought the command. Based on past performance, he was clearly the best choice. The proximity of Washington and its influence on how the war would be waged was no small matter. But Lincoln and the unassuming Grant quickly formed a strong trust in each other, and Lincoln would handle the Washington side of the war.

Although Grant was in charge of all the Union forces, he made his headquarters with General Meade and his Army of the Potomac. The General-in-chief told Meade, "Lee's army will be your objective. Where he goes, there you will go also." There would be no maneuvering for position.

The Battle of the Wilderness was the first of what would be a long, bloody, and almost continual contact between the two armies culminating the following year at Appomattox. By striking at Grant’s flank in the Wilderness, Lee negated some of the Union's superiority in troops and artillery. The two days of fighting was intense, and many of the wounded were burned to death by fires resulting form the battle. Although the Union suffered greater casualties, at the conclusion of the battle, Grant’s objective remained the same – Lee’s army. Rather than stopping or pulling back to Washington as his predecessor had, Grant moved south to attack again.

A reading list:
1) Grant and Lee: the Virginia Campaigns 1864-65 by William A Frassanito
2) The Virginia Campaign 1864 and 1865 by Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys
3) The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864 by Gordon C. Rhea
4) Bloody Roads South: May-June 1864 by Noah Andre Trudeau

Roundtable Newsletter

Here is the online version of the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable's newsletter. Our next meeting is November 8. I also made a link on the right for this and future roundtable newsletters so that years from now you can look back and think what a wonderful newsletter that was, or that Nick really needs a copy editor to help him out. More likely to think that second thing, but oh well.

Symposium Registration

The Rocky Mountain Civil War Symposium is coming along very well. We recently completed our registration flyer that we will send out and post around town and online. Click here for a copy of our registration flyer. Its early but you can register now for the symposium. Operators are standing by.

The flyer does not mention the presenters or topics, that is part of the poster than will be posted in the same places. That poster is not quite complete but I can share the info with you. Our theme is the War in the West 1861-1862. We have a pretty good group of Western Theater authors who have been published extensively on a variety of Western Theater topics.

Sam Davis Elliott will be talking about Confederate General Alexander P. Stewart. James Lee McDonough will provide an overview of the Western Theater. Timothy B. Smith will talk about Shiloh. Kenneth W. Noe will take us to Perryville. And Matt Spruill will conclude our Western battles with Stones River.

I think its a pretty balanced panel. Not too heavy on battles, although battles are important, with a good biography in the mix and a nice overview.

The event would not be complete without other activities and we will have some of those. We will have at least one display of period items from a local collector, plus a variety of booksellers so that hopefully nearly every book written by a presenter will be available for sale. There will also be time set aside for the authors to sign their books.

Shenandoah Valley

The other big project the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable is working on is starting up our next battle study. Every year we take a battle or campaign, spend several months doing a detailed study of it and conclude the study with a trip to the field to walk that ground. Last year we did Antietam with a fantastic trip in April. As an indication of how much we study something beforehand I think we broke the battle of Antietam into 7 parts, plus there was probably another 4 or 5 meetings to handle the stuff before and after the battle. Now we have decided to make Stonewall Jackson's 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign our next study. Right now I'm collecting articles, maps, books, etc to create a binder for each study group participant. We make these binders every year so that everyone has loads of maps and other materials to make the study a bit easier. Everyone cannot buy and read every book so this helps provide a good base. Anyone have any tips about what to include in the binder?

Symposium

Here is a list of the books published by our group of speakers:

Sam Davis Elliott:
Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee: The Memoir and Civil War Diary of Charles Todd Quintard
Soldier of Tennessee: General Alexander P. Stewart and the Civil War in the West

James Lee McDonough:
Shiloh: in Hell before Night
War in Kentucky: From Shiloh to Perryville
Stones River: Bloody Winter in Tennessee
Chattanooga: Death Grip on the Confederacy
Nashville: The Western Confederacy's Final Gamble
Five Tragic Hours: The Battle of Franklin
War So Terrible: Sherman and Atlanta

Kenneth W. Noe:
The Civil War in Appalachia
A Southern Boy in Blue
Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle
Politics and Culture of the Civil War Era
Southwest Virginia's Railroad

Timothy B. Smith:
The Untold Story of Shiloh: The Battle and the Battlefield
This Great Battlefield of Shiloh: History, Memory, and the Establishment of a Civil War National Military Park
Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862
Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg

Matt Spruill:
Guide to the Battle of Chickamauga
Storming the Heights: A Guide to the Battle of Chattanooga
Echoes of Thunder: A Guide to the Seven Days Battles
Guidebook on battle of Stones River due out this fall

As you can see our panel of speakers is quite accomplished with 22 books to their credit.

Rocky Mtn Civil War Symposium

As some of you may I am involved in the Rocky Mountain Civil War Roundtable. I thought I'd take some space to publicize one of our upcoming events. We are in the process of creating a Civil War symposium in the Denver area. We decided to do it to learn something, perhaps expand the roundtable membership, and have fun. If it ends up making money then its something we'll do annually, expanding as we see fit.

We have secured a pretty good list of speakers to fit our theme, The War in the West 1861-1862. Tim Smith will talk about Shiloh. Sam Davis Elliott will talk about Confederate General Alexander P. Stewart. Kenneth Noe will talk about Perryville. Matt Spruill will talk about Stones River. And James Lee McDonough rounds out the group with a talk on the importance of the western theater. Exact topics will be announced here later but this gives you some idea of what will be presented. Each presenter has been published on his topic, plus has had other books published on other western theater topics. For our first year, with no reputation behind us, I think this is a pretty impressive group to sign on with just the hope that we'll do a good job.

Our symposium will be April 5, 2008 at a lecture hall at the Community College of Aurora, our co-sponsor. We will have a few book sellers present (our goal is to have all of the publishers of our speakers represented plus a few local booksellers and I think we'll achieve that). There will most likely be an exhibit featuring a local collector's impressive collection.

I'll get more info out about this from time to time, right now just something else to occupy my time. But I'm glad to do it as I think we can be successful at it and make this an annual event. Plus it should be a great time. If you'd like more info, or be on our mailing list, leave me a comment or shoot me an email. Thanks.