LCWRT Participates at the Simpsonville Massacre Dedication

We have more from the April 10, 2011, the Shelby County Historical Society dedication.  This is the completed memorial to the 22 USCC soldiers killed by Confederate guerrillas near Simpsonville, Ky in Jan. 1865. As a  recipient of the LCWRT 2009 Preservation Grant, we were happy to participate on the ceremony. The memorial, on U.S. 60 west of Simpsonville, features 22 memorial headstones, a dry stone sitting wall, flag pole and a historical marker.

Honor Guard from the 12th USCHA -Reactivated

 Dr. Art Boerner, LCWRT President, makes his remarks, with Jerry T. Miller, Shelby County Historical Society Project Manager ( and LCWRT member) on left

 Bronze Dedication plaque

Round Table members in attendance: L. to R. Chris Kolakowski, Art Boerner, Holly Jenkins-Evans, John Davis, Monty Evans

Shelby County Historic Society Dedicates USCC 5th KY Cavalry Memorial

On April 10, 2011, the Shelby County Historical Society dedicated a new memorial to the 22 USCC soldiers killed by Confederate guerrillas near Simpsonville, Ky in Jan. 1865. This project was the recipient of the LCWRT 2009 Preservation Grant. The memorial, on U.S. 60 west of Simpsonville, features 22 memorial headstones, a sitting wall, flag  pole and a historical marker. LCWRT President Dr. Art Boerner was asked to participate in the dedication along with Shelby County Judge Executive Rob Rothenberger, Dr. J. Blaine Hudson, Chairman of the Ky. African American Heritage Commission and Kent Whitworth, Executive Director of the Ky. Historical Society and an Honor Guard from the 12th USCHA -Reactivated.

The LCWRT would like to thank Jerry T. Miller, project manager for the Shelby County Historical Society for bringing this project to our attention and allowing the LCWRT another opportunity to continue our  mission to preserve Ky. Civil War Battlefield sites.

For more on the story and photos, Click here

"U.S. Grant Returns to Mississippi" with John Marszalek

Meet our Speaker: Dr. John Marszalek

An alumnus of Buffalo's Canisius College and the University of Notre Dame, Dr. John F. Marszalek taught at Gannon University in Erie, PA. before going to Mississippi State University in 1973 where he became a W. L. Giles Distinguished Professor of History in 1994, and retired as Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 2002. A specialist in the U. S. Civil War, the Jacksonian Period, and race relations, he is the author or editor of thirteen books and over 300 articles and book reviews. He has lectured widely throughout the nation and has appeared on all the major broadcast and cable networks, as well as radio stations throughout the nation. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the Richard Wright Literary Award for life-time achievement by a Mississippi author and the B.L.C. Wailes Award for national distinction in history.

Dr. Marszalek is the executive director and managing editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, co-executive director of the Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Lincoln Forum, the Lincoln Prize, and the Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. From 2007-2008, he served as president of the Mississippi Historical Society.

He is best known for his award winning books:
Sherman, A Soldier's Passion for Order , a finalist for the Lincoln Prize and a History Book Club selection,The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House, also a History Book Club selection,The Diary of Miss Emma Holmes, 1861-1866, Sherman’s Other War: The General and the Civil War Press, Commander of All Lincoln's Armies, A Life of General Henry W. Halleck
a History Book Club selection and a finalist for the 2005 Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship, Sherman's March to the Sea, A Black Congressman in the Age of Jim Crow, South Carolina's George Washington Murray, and he co-edited The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights'

A U.S. Army Vietnam veteran, Dr. Marszalek is married to the former Jeanne Kozmer, and they are the parents of three grown sons and have four grandchildren.

Follow the Civil War Sesquicentennial On-line

If you have access to the Internet, you can follow the events each day of what happened 150 years ago in both the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both of the papers are offering great articles on the Civil War and these are absolutely free. The New York Times web site is Nytimes.com and just click on Opinion then Opinionator and Disunion and you will find a listing of the articles. The Washington Post address is washingtonpost.com and then go to house-divided.

Kentucky Sesquicentennial Events

April 8-9: Civil War Seminar, Winchester.

April 10: Gravestone dedication, United States Colored Troops, Simpsonville.

September 1-4: Cornets and Cannons Civil War Sesquicentennial Music Festival, Frankfort.

Cornets and Cannons Civil War Sesquicentennial Music Festival

The City of Frankfort, Kentucky, will host a unique observance of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The Cornets and Cannons Civil War Sesquicentennial Music Festival will celebrate the music of the War Between the States. Outstanding ensembles and solo performers from across the eastern United States will be in Kentucky’s capital city for this event on September 1-4, 2011.
The Festival will begin on the evening of Thursday, September 1 with an opening ceremony and a program about the history of Civil War era music at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History. Festival concerts will begin on Friday with a performance on the lawn of the Old State Capitol by the Wildcat Band from Pennsylvania. On Friday evening, Saxton’s Cornet Band – Frankfort’s hometown Civil War ensemble – will perform in the Grand Theatre. Performances will continue Saturday and Sunday with a “battle of the bands” as the climax of the event on Sunday afternoon. This joint performance will be at Frankfort’s new Ward Oates Amphitheatre overlooking the Kentucky River. Cannons will join the horns, fifes, and drums in a dramatic – and loud – closing concert.

All Cornets and Cannons events will be free. Details about the performers, presenting scholars, and venues are at the event website – www.cornetsandcannons.com.

Silent Auction of Fort Sumter Flag at April Meeting

We will conclude the silent auction of a flag that has flown over Fort Sumter and was donated by National Park Historian Rick Hatcher. This is a reproduction of the first Confederate flag that flew over the fort after the surrender on April 13, 1861. This flag will be won just three days from the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

2010 – 2011 Dates

Saturday April 9 John Marszalek “Grant Returns to Mississippi”

Saturday May 14 Jeffrey Wert “Jeb Stuart”

Saturday September 7 Joe Reinhart “ McCook’s Dutchmen: The 9th Ohio Infantry”

Saturday October 8 Larry Hewitt “Bragg and His Calvary”

Saturday November 12 Glenn LaFantasie “The Rise of U.S. Grant”

Saturday December 3 Sam Elliot “Tennessee Governor Isham Harris”

Saturday February 11 Michael Bradley “TBA”

Saturday March 10 Gary Gallagher “TBA”

Saturday April 14 Ari Hoogenboom “TBA”

LCWRT Loses Life Member Wolfe Scofield

The Louisville Civil War Round table is saddened by the death of Dr. Wolfe Scofield on April 3, 2011 after a long illness. Wolfe was a Past President and former board member and dedicated to the welfare of the Round Table. He was honored with our Life Membership in 2008. He and Tiffany were a fixture on our Spring Field Trips.

He will be missed. We extend deep sympathies to Tiffany and their son Ted.

From the Courier Journal:

"A lifelong Louisvillian, Wolfe was a graduate of Atherton High School, the University of Louisville and U of L's School of Medicine. He was honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award and Alumni Service Award from the College of Arts & Sciences, and the Irvin S. Abell Sr. Award from the School of Medicine. Wolfe completed his surgical training at the Mayo Clinic and served as president of the Jefferson County Medical Society, chief of staff and chief of surgery of Audubon Hospital as well as numerous other medical staffs. He was very active in the community, serving as president and life member of the Louisville Civil War Round Table, president of the Innominate Society and the Woodcock Society, and leading many other local organizations. He was a member of St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church and especially enjoyed going on mission trips."

Bits and Pieces, April 2011

Springfield Ohio Civil War Symposium, May 7

A Civil War symposium will be held in Springfield, Ohio on May 7 at the Heritage Center, 117 South Fountain Ave. The symposium will start at 9:00 and include 3 speakers before lunch at 12:00. Following lunch will be two more speakers and a panel discussion on "Was the Civil War Inevitable?" Speakers include Fergus Bodewich, Mark Grimsley, Ethan Rafuse, and Nicole Etcheson. The cost is $25.00 and there is limited seating.

There will also be a bookshop and book signings and Andy Turner of the Morningside Book Store the publisher of the "Gettysburg Magazine" will be there. The symposium will end at 5:00. Reservations are required and the deadline is April 30, 2011. You can call the Springfield Heritage Center for tickets at 937-324-0697.

For Pennsylvania Casino, a Civics Lesson from Wal-Mart

By James Lighthizer and Tom Kiernan of the Civil War Trust

"Wal-Mart recently made the responsible and welcome decision to abandon its plan to build a supercenter on the Wilderness Battlefield in Orange County, Va. Just as its permit to build on the Civil War site was about to go to trial, and after enduring what one media outlet called "withering opposition," the nation's largest retailer explained that it "just felt it was the right thing to do." But other historic sites are not so lucky. As well-intentioned as it may be, the proposed Mason-Dixon Casino near Pennsylvania's Gettysburg Battlefield could similarly compromise the integrity of some of the most hallowed ground in our country - ground soaked with the blood of tens of thousands of our ancestors, and further consecrated by the words of Abraham Lincoln as he set the nation on a path toward "a new birth of freedom." If approved, the proposal would allow a casino to operate at the battlefield's edge, just a half-mile from the boundary of Gettysburg National Military Park.

Four years ago, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board decided that an application for a gaming hall twice as far from the battlefield was inappropriate. But the controversy continues as another proposal is considered.

America is poised to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War this year. From coast to coast, communities are preparing to pay tribute to its staggering consequences and its role in shaping the country we know today. Now is not the time for division. Rather, let us use this occasion to put controversies behind us.

As the newly inaugurated president of a nation on the brink of a mass fratricide, Abraham Lincoln told his fellow citizens, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot's grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when touched again, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Today, too, we must remember that we are not enemies, but fellow citizens of a country shaped by the men who fell at Gettysburg, Wilderness, and thousands of other battlefields before, during, and since the Civil War. If Wal-Mart can change its mind and subjugate financial gain to respect for our national heritage in the case of Wilderness, will Mason-Dixon's investors not consider a similar act of corporate and social responsibility for Gettysburg? "

March 2011 Quiz:

1. One of President-elect Lincoln's cabinet appointees tried to withdraw prior to the inauguration. Who was he?

2. How many reinforcements did Major Robert Anderson say he needed in order to hold Fort Sumter?

3. What was the last Major public act of Sam Houston, the deposed governor of Texas?

4. The Confederacy sent three commissioners to negotiate with the Lincoln administration. Who
were they?

5. What Supreme Court Justice served as a go-between for the Confederate commissioners with what Lincoln cabinet member? What were the results of these dealings?