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Civil War Round Table of Arkansas
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Our 42nd Year
FOR THE MEETING TUESDAY, FEB
28,
2006
Meets Fourth Tuesday,
January-November
Founded March 1964
Fletcher Branch Library, H & Buchanan
(East of University Ave.),
Little Rock
Program at 7 p.m.
Online: www.civilwarbuff.org
VOL. XLII, No. 2,
Jan Sarna, President
/ Charles O. Durnett, Editor,
Dues $15 Per Year
VISITORS WELCOME!
VISIT THE BATTLEFIELDS WHEN YOU CAN...
WHILE YOU CAN
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The
Battle
of Stones
River
(Murfreesboro)
December 31 - January 2, 1863
By
Brian
Brown
After
Gen. Braxton
Bragg's defeat at
Perryville, Kentucky,
October 8, 1862, he and his Confederate Army of the
Mississippi retreated,
reorganized, and were re-designated as the Army of Tennessee. They then
advanced to
Murfreesboro,
Tennessee, and prepared to go into winter
quarters. Maj. Gen.
William
S.
Rosecrans's Union Army of the
Cumberland followed Bragg
from
Kentucky to
Nashville.
Rosecrans left
Nashville
on December 26, with about 45,000 men, to defeat Bragg's
army. He found Bragg's army on December 29
and went into camp that night, within hearing distance of the Rebels. At
dawn on the 31st, Bragg's men attacked the
Union right flank. The Confederates had driven the Union line back to
the Nashville Pike by 10:00 am but there it held. Union
reinforcements arrived from
Rosecrans's left in the late forenoon to
bolster the stand and before fighting stopped that day, the Federals had
established a new, strong line. On New Years Day, both armies marked
time. Bragg surmised that
Rosecrans would now withdraw, but the next
morning he was still in position. In late afternoon,
Bragg hurled a division at a Union division that, on January 1,
had crossed
Stones
River
and had taken up a strong position on the bluff east of the river. The
Confederates drove most of the Federals back across McFadden's Ford, but
with the assistance of artillery, the Federals repulsed the attack,
compelling the Rebels to retire to their original position.
Bragg
left the field on the January 4-5, retreating to Shelbyville and
Tullahoma, Tennessee.
Rosecrans did not pursue, but as the
Confederates retired, he claimed the victory.
Stones
River boosted Union
morale. The Confederates had been thrown back in the east, west, and in
the Trans-Mississippi.
THE SKIRMISH ON OUR
NORTHERN BORDER
Sale of Civil War site proposed
Proposal would turn Carthage
battleground
into living history park
Susan
Redden
Globe Staff Writer
2/17/06
CARTHAGE,
Mo.
- A proposal to preserve land that was the scene of part of the Battle
of Carthage will be outlined at noon today at the Carthage Civil War
Museum. Officials of Battle of Carthage Inc. are to announce
that the nonprofit group has obtained a purchase option for land on
which fighting took place on July 5, 1861.
Gordon
Billheimer, president of the
organization, said the tract holds the potential to become a
commemorative and living-history park to recognize the important events
that happened in Missouri
at the start of the Civil War. "Many issues in our country
and in this area were impacted by the Civil War," he said. "It's
important that people understand it."
Billheimer said the group was formed about seven or eight years ago and
sponsored Battle of Carthage re-enactments in 2000 and 2003. Money
raised at the last event is "seed money" for the purchase option.
Details about the tract, the purchase plan, and a fund-raising campaign
will be announced today. Billheimer said the property is north of
Carthage
on Civil War Road.
A state historic site recognizing the battle is located just east of
Carthage
on Chestnut Street.
That tract is the location of one of the last skirmishes of the battle
and was a campsite for both armies - Union troops the night before the
battle and Confederate troops the following night. The
battle was a running engagement that spread over 10 miles. Col.
Franz
Sigel and his army of 1,100 fully armed men
were sent to Southwest Missouri to stop
Missouri Gov.
Claiborne
Jackson's army - 4,000 armed and 2,000 unarmed
men - from joining Confederate troops in
Arkansas.
On July 5, 1861, the troops met about nine miles north of
Carthage. The most severe fighting took place at
crossings of Dry Fork Creek,
Buck
Branch, and
Spring
River. The
Confederate Missouri State Guard was victorious, but Union troops
escaped the superior force with minimal losses.
The battle happened more than two weeks before the first Battle of Bull
Run outside of
Washington, D.C.
Billheimer, who is a Civil War re-enactor, said it has been recognized
as the first major land battle of the war. Sixteen other battles and
skirmishes took place in and around
Carthage
during the war, he said.
KEEP AN EYE OUT
Some things that may be coming this way:
A 2011 Committee is being formed to celebrate the Sesquicentennial of
the Civil War and the 100TH Anniversary of the UCV meeting in
Little Rock.
The Military
Museum has obtained an 1841 - 12-pound mountain howitzer
from
Virginia.
Watch for Don
Hamiltons excitement on this one.
Reeds Bridge has finished the management study and is moving into the
acquisition phase.
 ARKANSAS
1861
March 1861
04 -
Lincoln's
inaugural address. Union Secession convention members pay $75.00 for the
text to be wired to Little Rock.
Neither pro-Unionists nor pro-Secessionists cared for the speech at all.
04 -
Arkansas Secession Convention convenes.
05 - "Test vote" held for
Convention chair, pro-Unionists win 40-35. The vote is split
geographically between yeoman farmers in the mountainous northwest and
planters in the delta.
06 - Two
South Carolina visitors are
allowed to speak at the Convention. They stated that since
South Carolina was responsible for
Arkansas
being allowed into the Union, that
Arkansas
should follow her out of it.
08 - Fire-eaters at the
Convention begin to lose patience when every attempt to draw up a
secession ordinance is voted down.
11 - Unionists in good mood,
rumor is that
Lincoln will evacuate
Charleston Forts. Unionists vote to open each session with a prayer.
Pro-secessionists are exasperated.
12-15 - A titanic display of
Arkansans oratorical skills or lack thereof.
16 - Roll call vote. Secession
defeated 39-35. Thirty-nine guns are fired at Van
Buren in celebration. In the delta meetings are held advocating
division of the State. Secessionists manage to get a concession from the
convention that would allow a vote of the people.
State Seal Of
Arkansas
(1861)
Ordinance Of Secession Of
Arkansas
(Passed In The State Capitol At
Little Rock On 06 May 1861, By A Vote Of
69-1.)
AN ORDINANCE
to dissolve the union now existing between the State of
Arkansas and the other States united with her under the
compact entitled "The Constitution of the
United States of
America."
WHEREAS, in addition to the well-founded causes of complaint set forth
by this Convention, in resolutions adopted on the 11th of March, A.D.
1861, against the sectional party now in power in
Washington
City, headed by
Abraham
Lincoln, he has, in the face
of resolutions passed by this Convention pledging the State of
Arkansas
to resist to the last extremity any attempt on the part of such power to
coerce any State that had seceded from the old
Union, proclaimed to the world that war should be waged
against such States until they should be compelled to submit to their
rule, and large forces to accomplish this have by this same power been
called out, and are now being marshaled to carry out this inhuman
design; and to longer submit to such rule, or remain in the old
Union of the
United States, would be disgraceful and
ruinous to the State of
Arkansas:
Therefore we, the people of the State of
Arkansas, in Convention assembled, do hereby
declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the
"ordinance and acceptance of compact" passed and approved by the General
Assembly of the State of
Arkansas
on the 18th day of October, A.D. 1836, whereby it was by said General
Assembly ordained that by virtue of the authority vested in said General
Assembly by the provisions of the ordinance adopted by the convention of
delegates assembled at Little
Rock for the purpose of forming a constitution
and system of government for said State, the propositions set forth in
"An act supplementary to an act entitled 'An act for the admission of
the State of
Arkansas into the
Union, and to provide for the due execution of the laws of
the United States
within the same, and for other purposes,'" were freely accepted,
ratified, and irrevocably confirmed, articles of compact and union
between the State of Arkansas and the
United States, and all other laws and
every other law and ordinance, whereby the State of
Arkansas
became a member of the Federal Union,
be, and the same are hereby, in all respects and for every purpose
herewith consistent, repealed, abrogated, and fully set aside; and the
union now subsisting between the State of
Arkansas
and the other States, under the name of the
United States of America, is hereby
forever dissolved.
And we do further hereby declare and ordain, That the State of Arkansas
hereby resumes to herself all rights and powers heretofore delegated to
the Government of the
United States of America; that her
citizens are absolved from all allegiance to said Government of the
United States, and that she is in full
possession and exercise of all the rights and sovereignty which
appertain to a free and independent State.
We do further ordain and declare, That all rights acquired and vested
under the Constitution of the
United States of America, or of any act
or acts of Congress, or treaty, or under any law of this State, and not
incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in full force and effect,
in nowise altered or impaired, and have the same effect as if this
ordinance had not been passed.
Adopted and passed in open Convention on the 6th day of May, A.D. 1861
PROGRAMS 2006
January 24:
Don
Nall
Stonewall's Wounding and Death
Feb
28:
Brian
Brown
Stone's River
March 28:
John
C.
Scott, NPS
The
Pea Ridge
Story
including
Dr.
Doug
Scotts recent
archeological survey of the battlefield
April 25:
Don
Hamilton
A
Day at Shiloh
May
23:
Cal
Collier
TBA
June 27:
TBA
July 25:
Dr.
Bobby Roberts
River War in
Arkansas
August 22:
TBA
September 26:
Michael
B. Dougan
Snarling cormorants of newspaper filth:
" The Civil War Press of
Arkansas."
October 24:
TBA
November 28:
TBA
Election of Officers
December 2006
No
meeting Scheduled in December
We Who Study
Must Also Strive To Save!
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Make us your home page
www.civilwarbuff.org
Register to receive your
newsletter on-line
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"Edge of Conflict"
at the IMAX
AETN's "Edge of Conflict-
Arkansas in the Civil War" will be broadcasted onto the big
screen at the
Aerospace
Education
Center
at 7 pm on May 11. This event will be sponsored by AETN, the Arkansas
Times, KUAR, and the
Aeropsace
Education
Center.
At this event, the SCV, COC, UDC, Reenactors from around the state, and
the Civil War Roundtable of Arkansas will have a direct involvement in
promoting and being visible at this event. Mark your calendars now for
this Civil War extravaganza!
TENNESSEE
CIVIL WAR SOURCEBOOK
http://www.civilwarsourcebook.com/
This sourcebook aims at chronicling
the military, economic, social, and political history associated with
the Civil War as it happened in
Tennessee.
The sources consulted were diaries, period newspapers, official Civil
War records, diaries, ship deck logs, letters, and historical articles.
There are well over 7,000 entries in this collection.
When details of history are obscured
by circumstances of inscrutability, citizens may become imperfectly
informed of their own past and worse, distrustful of their institutions.
This work will have been successful should it be of some help in
overcoming such a state of affairs.
Of rebel raiders and the West
By Tom
Chaffin
TOM CHAFFIN is the author of the
just-released book "Sea
of
Gray: The
Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider 'Shenandoah.' "
FORT POINT, A STATELY brick pile at the base of the
San Francisco side of the Golden
Gate
Bridge, might be the most
overlooked landmark in
California. Literally and figuratively
overshadowed by a world-famous landmark and a storied view, it is the
relic of a history that is as easy to miss as the fort itself.
Between 1861 and 1865, 500 Army soldiers stood constant guard at Ft.
Point, securing
California's largest
(population 58,000) and richest city during the Civil War. Thousands of
other Union military forces were dispersed throughout the state.
California was anything but a passive
bystander in America's
bloodiest conflict. Union and Confederate partisans had split, in large
part, over the question of whether the territories of the West and
states such as
California would be open to
the spread of slavery. When the war came, Confederate-Union conflicts,
including a handful of battles, flared on Western soil.
California entered the Union in 1850 as a
free state, and
Abraham
Lincoln, in the 1860
presidential race, managed to carry the state. But only barely. In 1861,
slavery remained illegal in
California, but blacks lacked full rights, such
as suffrage. Moreover, with the Gold Rush of 1849, thousands of
Southerners had streamed into the state, many of whom favored the
Confederacy. By the time, the war erupted, about 40% of
California's white population of 380,000
hailed from below the Mason-Dixon Line.
U.S. officials in
California thus faced the
challenge of tamping down open and clandestine Confederate insurgencies
within the state and preventing invasion by outside rebel forces.
In February 1861, two months before the Civil War's first shots,
officials in the outgoing administration of
President James
Buchanan ordered the completion and
arming of Ft. Point, whose construction, begun in 1853, had languished.
They anticipated the fort's strategic importance in protecting the
"treasure steamers" that soon departed from
San Francisco carrying
eastbound gold donated by patriotic Californians to Union coffers.
During the war, the Confederacy launched eight major warships aimed at
destroying commercial shipping. Of those, the Shenandoah, a "commerce
raider" clandestinely purchased in
Britain
and dispatched to prey on the whaling fleet, was the most feared along
the West Coast. A 220-foot auxiliary steamer propelled by steam and
wind the Shenandoah eventually became the only Confederate ship to
circumnavigate the globe. During the steamer's 13-month, 58,000-mile
voyage, she destroyed 32 Union vessels.
By spring 1865, rumors in San
Francisco
had the raider California-bound, intent on capturing a treasure steamer
or even laying siege to the city. One rumor suggested that
San Francisco was so vulnerable
that a ship dispatched by the Shenandoah had already slipped into the
port to procure provisions for the raider.
Ironically, San Francisco's
fears of the Shenandoah reached their apogee in July 1865, three months
after the Civil War had formally concluded.
When sentries at Ft. Point spotted a whaler, the Milo, approaching the
Golden Gate on July 20, 1865 long before the end of the
whaling season they surmised that she did not bring good news. Local
newspapers soon headlined sensational stories.
The Shenandoah's Confederates, using their signature ruse the flying
of a false flag captured the Milo.
They refused to believe what the whalers told them: The South had
surrendered months earlier. In exchange for the Confederates' promise to
save his ship, the Milo's captain had to agree to transport his own crew
and the Shenandoah's growing roster of potentially mutinous prisoners to
San Francisco. The Shenandoah would go on to
destroy 17 ships, including nine Yankee whalers burned on a single day
in the Bering Strait.
In San Francisco,
the cries for retaliation mounted. Over the next few weeks, however, as
the Shenandoah failed to appear along the
Pacific
Coast of the
U.S., the city breathed easier. By
then, the raider was off
Mexico's coast.
There, a British merchantman had delivered again the news of the
Confederacy's collapse. This time, the Shenandoah's officers and crew
believed it. The news meant that for months they had been fighting
without cause or state: In the eyes of the world, they were no better
than pirates, a hangable offense. Stowing their cannons and camouflaging
the ship as a merchant vessel, they commenced an outlaw odyssey in
search of a friendly port somewhere in the world.
California,
and the weary soldiers who stood the fog-shrouded vigil at Ft. Point,
had weathered the rebel threat. However, for the Confederates aboard the
Shenandoah, their own drama had suddenly grown infinitely darker and
more complicated.
[EDITORS NOTE: Wordsworth
Bookstore in Little Rock
had a couple
of copies of this book. They are going fast.]
SEE YOU TUESDAY NIGHT
for The
Battle of
Stones
River
Always Remember
Always Be Ready
VISIT THE BATTLEFIELDS
WHEN YOU CAN...WHILE YOU CAN
GOD BLESS
AMERICA
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