Current Newsletter and Archives
Williamsburg Civil War
Roundtable
Meeting Place:
WILLIAMSBURG
Williamsburg Regional Library Theatre
Volume XLIII Number 3 November 27, 2018
J. Michael Moore
"The Civil War Comes to the Lower Peninsula"
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 November 27, 2018 J. Michael Moore will present
“The Civil War Comes to the Lower Peninsula”.
The Virginia Peninsula, situated between the
James and York rivers, was recognized as
strategically important by the Confederate and Union
leaders in the first few months of the Civil War.
Located on the tip of the Peninsula at Old Point
Comfort, Fort Monroe was the only Federal
installation remaining in the Upper South and
provided a base for riverine and amphibious
operations. Moreover, the Confederate capital at
Richmond was only eighty miles up the Virginia
Peninsula. Richmond was a strategic target not just
for political reasons, but was the Confederacy’s
industrial center with the South’s largest iron
manufacturing firms, two shipyards, and five
railroads. Blocking any Union advance up the
Peninsula, Confederate Major General John Bankhead
Magruder commanded over 10,000 troops behind three
lines of defenses with water batteries on the James
and York rivers. In April 1862, Union Major
General George B. McClellan launched the Peninsula
Campaign from Fort Monroe and Newport News Point
with the ultimate goal of capturing Richmond and
ending Civil War. Join Historian J. Michael
Moore for a lively discussion of the Young Napoleon
and the ever-colorful “Prince John” Magruder.
This lecture also covers the Civil War’s effects on
the common soldiers and the free and enslaved
residents of the Peninsula. Moreover, the
April 5 – May 3, 1862 Siege of the Warwick-Yorktown
Line played out on a landscape that held memories of
the American Revolution.
J. Michael Moore is employed by the City of Newport
News as the curator for Lee Hall Mansion and Endview
Plantation. Mr. Moore received a bachelor of
arts in history from Christopher Newport University
and a master of arts in history from Old Dominion
University. During his tenure with the City,
Moore has curated exhibits at several local historic
sites and led battlefield tours in Maryland, North
Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Moreover, he is a popular lecturer for CNU’s
LifeLong Learning Society. Moore has also
co-authored two books – The Peninsula Campaign of
1862: A Military Analysis in 2005 and Yorktown’s
Civil War Siege: Drums Along the Warwick in 2012.
In addition, Michael has served as the editor and
photographic editor for twelve books and written
articles for Virginia Cavalcade, North & South,
Military Collector & Historian, and Mulberry Island
Notes. In recognition of his work in public
history, the Governor of Kentucky commissioned Moore
a Kentucky Colonel in 2014. He is a Newport
News native and resides in Historic Yorktown.
Last Month
Dr. E. C. (Curt) Fields, Jr.
as General Grant presented an overview of 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 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.)
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
- 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
- November 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.