Current Newsletter and Archives
Williamsburg Civil War
Roundtable
Meeting Place:
WILLIAMSBURG
Williamsburg Regional Library Theatre
Volume XLIII Number 2 October 23, 2018
Dr. E. C. (Curt) Fields, Jr.
As General Grant discusses "Shiloh"
Join us for the next meeting of the Williamsburg Civil War Roundtable at the Williamsburg Public Library Theatre at 7 PM on Tuesday, October 23, 2018.
On October 23, 2018 Dr. Curt Fields (as General Grant) will present "Shiloh"
Grant had been released from
house arrest (he lamented that they didn't even have
a guard posted for him, so he must not be very
important) at Fort Donelson and restored to command
of the Army of the Tennessee on March 13th of '62.
He arrived at the Cherry Mansion in Savannah, Tenn.,
on March 17th, to take command of the Army of the
Tennessee from Charles Ferguson Smith (his
commandant of cadets when he was a student at the
USMA and whom he now outranked). Smith was laid up
abed with a scraped injury to his leg that
eventually killed him a few days after the battle.
Grant immediately set about to train his raw army of
some 33,000 men at Pittsburg Landing, with another
5,000 soldiers with General Lew Wallace five miles
north of Pittsburg Landing at Crump's Landing, as he
waited for General Buell to arrive from Middle
Tennessee, with 37,000 men in the army of the Ohio.
Together they would march on Corinth, Mississippi
(some 20 miles to the south of the camp at Pittsburg
landing, Tennessee) to capture the railroad
crossroads in Corinth.
However, General Albert Sydney Johnston of the CSA
had a different agenda regarding the Federal forces
at Pittsburg Landing and their intent to march on
Corinth and the crossroads of the Mobile and Ohio
and the Memphis and Charleston railroads. Rather
than wait for the combined force of more than 75,000
men to attack his entrenched position in Corinth at
the crossroads, he determined to give Grant battle
at Pittsburg Landing and push him into the Tennessee
river.
It has long and loudly been asserted that Grant (and
Sherman) was surprised by the Confederate attack at
Pittsburg Landing. He has been severely criticized
about not having built breastworks or dug trenches.
He was held responsible by the Northern press for
the appalling loss of life at Pittsburg landing
(23,746 killed/wounded), and his dismissal was
demanded even unto the President in the Executive
Mansion; the President being urged to sack Grant and
save himself politically.
Was Grant surprised? Was it a failure of Leadership
not to build or dig breastworks/trenches? Was he
responsible for the staggering loss of life?
Grant stated: "The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg
Landing, has been perhaps less understood, or, to
state the case more accurately, more persistently
misunderstood, than any other engagement between
National and Confederate troops during the entire
rebellion. Shiloh was the severest battle fought at
the West during the war, and but few in the East
equaled it for hard, determined fighting.” (excerpt
from "The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant")
Dr. E. C. (Curt) Fields,
Jr., has been an avid and lifelong student of the
American Civil War. His interest in portraying
General Ulysses S. Grant was driven by that study
and his deep respect and admiration for General
Grant.
Dr.
Fields is the same height and body style as General
Grant and, therefore, presents a convincing,
true-to-life image of the man as he really looked.
He researches and reads extensively about General
Grant in order to deliver an accurate persona of the
General. His presentations are in first person,
quoting from General Grant’s Memoirs; articles and
letters the General wrote, statements he made in
interviews or wrote himself, and first-person
accounts of people who knew the General or were with
him and witnessed him during events. Dr. Fields
holds a Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Education
from the University of Memphis. He later earned a
Master’s degree in Secondary Education and Ph.D. in
Educational Administration and Curriculum from
Michigan State University. He is a career educator
having taught for eight years at the Junior and
Senior high school levels; then served for 25 years
as a high school administrator. He teaches as an
adjunct Sociology Professor at the University of
Memphis and in Education for Belhaven University,
Memphis campus. Dr. Fields maintains a website
entitled
generalgrantbyhimself.com which provides more
complete biographical information.)
Last Month
On September 25, 2018 John Quarstein presented
“Wake-Up Call – The Battle of Big Bethel”. Noted as
the first land battle of the Civil War, Big Bethel
was a mere skirmish soon overlooked by bloodier
battles that would follow. Nevertheless, Big Bethel
was a baptism of fire for a nation newly involved in
civil war. The soldiers that served at Bethel would
never forget the rude awakening of shells bursting
among the smartly clad Federal Zouaves or how Henry
Lawson Wyatt's body of the 1st North Carolina laid
lifeless on the field. They all knew that the war
would not just be filled with parades, and it would
not be over by Christmas. Instead, the soldiers
realized that it would be a bloody desperate affair.
The Union defeat at Big Bethel would establish the
battle lines in Hampton Roads for the next 10 months
awaiting the grand events of Spring 1862.
John V. Quarstein is an award-winning historian,
preservationist, and author. He is director emeritus
of the USS Monitor Center at The Mariners’ Museum
and Park in Newport News, Virginia. The author of 17
books, his titles include HILTON VILLAGE: AMERICA’S
FIRST PUBLIC PLANNED COMMUNITY; A HISTORY OF
IRONCLADS: THE POWER OF IRON OVER WOOD; CSS
VIRGINIA: SINK BEFORE SURRENDER; and THE MONITOR
BOYS: THE CREW OF THE UNION’S FIRST IRONCLAD, winner
of the 2012 Henry Adams Prize for excellence in
historical literature. Quarstein has also produced,
narrated and written several PBS documentaries
including the film series, CIVIL WAR IN HAMPTON
ROADS, a Silver Telly Award winner. Mr. Quarstein
is the recipient of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation’s President’s Award for Historic
Preservation, the Civil War Society’s Preservation
Award, and the Daughters of the American Revolution
Gold Historians Medal.
2018-2019 Officers of WCWRT:
President: Bill Miller
Vice-President: Lee Underwood
Secretary:
Gene Danko
Treasurer: George Callis
The Executive Committee consists of the elected
officers, the immediate past president and other
members appointed by the incoming president. Those
members include
Debbie Bedosti,.Tom Lamb, and Terri Teopke.
Upcoming Meetings and Speakers
- November 27, 2018 - Mr. J. Michael Moore "The Civil War Comes to the Lower Peninsula "
- December 18, 2018 - Dr. Charles Ross: “Creative Science and Technology in the Civil War”
- January 22, 2019 - Matt Atkinson "Vicksburg"
- February 26, 2019 - Dr. Jonathan White "Abraham Lincln - Early Life"
- March 26, 2019 - Ryan Quint: “Determined to Stand and Fight – The Battle of Monocacy, July 9, 1864”
- April 23, 2019 - Edward Alexander: “Breaking Through to the Other Side – Petersburg, April 2, 1865”
- May 28, 2019 - Bert Dunkerly: “To the Bitter End: The Surrenders of the Confederacy”
Special Events
- October 2018 - Chambersburg civil war tours details
- October 2018 - January 5, 2019 - American Revolution Museum at Yorktown presents 'Artillery in the War of Independence' details
Visit the Williamsburg Battlefield
Association
(http://www.williamsburgbattlefieldassociation.org/)
(https://www.facebook.com/WilliamsburgBattlefieldAssociation)
WEBSITE: Be sure to frequently
visit the site for newsletter info, announcements,
future and past speakers, and an up to date calendar
of events in the Civil War world. It’s
available anytime you need the info.
http://www.wcwrt.org.
The purpose of this organization shall be to promote discussion and study of the Civil War and to further stimulate interest in all aspects and phases of the Civil War period.