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January, 2015 Our Next Meeting – Thursday, January 16, 2015 edition 20, No. 5 “Beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy, and sleepless vigilance, go forward, and give us victories. “

Lincoln appoints Joe Hooker to Command of the Army of the Potomac, January, 1863

THE OLDE COLONY CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE

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Reporting the latest Occurrences from Both the Front and the Rear. http://www.occwrt.org

OFFICERS

President Joe Dipoli

Vice President Dana Zaiser

Secretary Gail Dugan

Treasurer Don Fitzgerald Campaign Editor

Paul Griffel Past President

Rich Campagna EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:

(Officers are also members) President Emeritus Joe Scalia

Bob Hearsey Martha Horsefield Barbara Magruder

Dana Zaiser Dave Sheldon

Peter McDonough Programs: Jack Kavanagh Membership: Paula Cunningham

Jubilee: Bob Hearsey, Gail Dugan Web Master and Preservation: Dana Zaiser Revere Award: Martha Horsefield Refreshment Barbara Magruder

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Olde Colony Civil War Round Table Headquarters: Dedham, Massachusetts

Editor Emeritus – David Kenney Current Editor

gengibbon@comcast.net

OCCWRT Monthly Meetings (except June/July/August and the October Jubilee Dinner)) are regularly held the 3rd

Thursday each month, 7:30 PM (except December—2nd Thursday) at the Endicott Estate, Dedham.

Our next meeting

Our January meeting will be on January 16, 2015 We will be meeting on Thursday, January 16th at 7:30pm at the Endicott Estate in Dedham. Book sale at 7:00pm. It is our pleasure to present Dale Julius, of the East Bridgewater CWRT, to be our moderator for a truly "round table" event. We invite all to take part in discussion, and hope this will become an annual event for all of us to directly learn from each other. Dale intends to lead a discussion based on his experiences as a Civil War buff, reenactor, and member of the Civil War Round Table. What experiences and insights during your involvement of the Civil War would you share with the group? Most importantly, how to impart that knowledge and experience to others? Please be prepared to make a few comments at the next meeting Raffle: a chance to win from a display of at least three CW books or CW items. Tickets are $2.00 each or 3 for $5.00; a bargain! Refreshments will be served after the meeting.

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Our Last Meeting: December 16, 2014: Our special Holiday meeting included a large book sale, many refreshments, and a minibit by Rich Campagna, The highlight was the annual and traditional “Civil War Christmas” provided by Brian Murphy:

Dickens’ in America, Christmas 1867 Brian P. Murphy, OCCWRT

Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. He wrote it in just six weeks. His publisher turned it down. Thus, Dickens used what little money he had at the time to put it out himself. That slim volume as he called it was “A Christmas Carol”. Financially, it was near disastrous at the outset, but at the same time, the book was immediately applauded both in England and in America. It breathed new life into Dickens’ career and new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor. Many of the Christmas customs and much of the imagery and music with which we are familiar today increased in popular usage in the 1840’s, 50’s, and grew perhaps tenfold in the 1860’s and beyond, as it was shared by the millions of Americans, north and south, mobilized in the course of supporting their side during the civil war. Many would travel hundreds of miles from home. By the Civil War, Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” became his best known work. It has been said that if all of the other works of Dickens should suddenly be extinct the story of Ebenezer Scrooge would surely survive for it has become part of Christmas folklore. After the Civil War, Dickens planned a tour of America. He had been to America once before. He toured for six months in 1842. He was thirty years old at the time was already an accomplished writer and famous novelist. He visited the south and north and

was hosted or met Poe, Longfellow, and Hawthorne. He took some heat too when he returned to London to write of his disgust of the presence of tobacco stains everywhere including the carpets in the Whitehouse. He was critical of the very lax copyright laws in the United wrote States, but also he was repulsed at the American institution of slavery. He wrote that “no Englishman could live happily in America.” So, it was looked upon with consternation when 1867 it was announced that Dickens was to return to tour America. Dickens was to tour the United States and present readings of his works in theaters throughout the east and as far west as Chicago and St. Louis. Boston was to be his base, the Parker House his home. Those that recalled his criticism of two and a half decades before questioned whether Dickens would be well received. They needn’t have worried. All seemed forgiven. Dickens himself worried about the reception he might receive. He had wanted to return to America for some time and was in the planning stages of a tour in the late 1850’s but the rising tensions and certainty of civil war caused him to rethink. Now, the war had been over for a year and a half. What’s more, there was no election to distract the people. It was time to come back to America. He arrived at Long Wharf in Boston aboard the Britannica on November 19th. He was now 55 year old and in ill health, suffering from a variety of ailments that would sap his energy most of the six months he would be in America. He would venture little from the Parker House while he rested but he did spend Thanksgiving, that new American holiday, with Longfellow. It was a somber affair no doubt as they dined in the very room where nine years before Longfellow’s wife had died in a horrible fire. While he recovered at the Parker House tickets to the first four readings were released for sale.

Charles Dickens resided in the Parker House for two years in his own apartments and first recited and performed "A Christmas Carol" at the Saturday Club at the Parker House (Wikipedia) The line began to form at seven-thirty on Sunday evening. The temperature was below freezing point. By ten o’clock there were fifty people in the line. Some had brought armchairs;

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others had mattresses and blankets, and stretched themselves out on the pavement. By midnight there were a hundred people in the queue which grew steadily hour by hour. They stamped their feet to keep warm and sang boisterous songs to pass the time. Friends relieved friends. Some were obliged to drop from the line through sheer exhaustion, other through having drunk too much…By eight o’clock in the morning the queue was half-a-mile long…The sale commenced at nine o’clock and lasted eleven hours until every ticket for the first four Readings was sold. The scene was repeated in New York and elsewhere. Spots in line near the front were sold for & $5, $10, in one report $30 in gold. Waiters in New York took to delivering food and drink to those in line for tickets wanting breakfast. Some five hundred Harvard undergraduates complained to Dickens through the popular campus academic, Professor Longfellow, that not one of them had been able to purchase a ticket, so active had "speculators" (ticket-scalpers) been prior to 2 December 1867. Dickens and his manager George Dolby tried to frustrate the practice, but to no avail. Dickens had hoped to keep prices of less attractive seats low enough that even working-class readers of his works would be able to attend The first of four readings in Boston was given on December 2nd, a Tuesday, at the Tremont Temple. An enthusiastic audience included the three-named literary stars Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, though all were not impressed. Emerson complained that the performance was too polished for his taste. A young Mark Twain would say of the reading he attended on New Year’s Eve was but “glittering frostwork.” This was coming from two who were used to the lecture-hall praise and the dollars now going to Dickens. One is left to wonder though how distracted might have been the attention of Mark Twain as he was on a first date with the woman who was to be his wife. The Boston Herald of the next morning would report: “Mr. Charles Dickens opened his ‘Peculiar’ entertainment in Tremont Temple last evening before as large an audience could be crowded comfortably into that hall – in which all the poets, philosophers, sages, and historians of this city and vicinity were mingled like plums in a Christmas pudding “The entertainment is unlike anything we have seen before. It is rather dramatic recitation than a reading, references to the book being very infrequent, and all the parts being recited with appropriate voice and action.” “Dickens had developed a new composite art form in his stage performances acting out specially adapted passages from his own works and varying his expressions and speech patterns so that it seemed he was being possessed by the characters he created.”

“The remark that ‘If Mr. Dickens had not been the greatest novelist living he would have been the greatest actor’ is justified by hearing him in the range of characters in a single reading.” Generally, in each of the 76 performances Dickens would do two readings, most often a Christmas Carol, (‘tis was the season after all) and a second of another of his popular stories. After four shows in Boston, it was on to New York where he appeared at Steinway Hall on December 9th.

A cartoon of Dickens giving a reading (user.dickinson,edu/) “The Hartford Courant reported the next day: “With the utterance of the first words of “A Christmas Carol” - ‘MARLEY WAS DEAD!’ every ear strained to catch the tone of the great novelist. Mr. Dickens’ great power lies in his dramatic ability. He does not read but recites, only referring to the printed pages as a matter of form. This enables him to give full effect to the dramatization. He is by turns Marley’s Ghost, Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Crachit and the different members of his family, Mr. Fezzywig and Scrooge’s nephew and Mr. Dickens’ most wonderful achievement was keeping entirely distinct these various and dissimilar individualities. For each one he has a distinct tone of voice and expression of the face. In short, the readings are highly finished works of art.” “There are but few actors on the stage who, playing but one part, are so earnest or so successful in the effort to throw aside their own peculiarities and adopt those of the character they personate. Many can do this but to small extent, yet few have the fidelity to this art to make effort fairly and show what capabilities in this way what they would have. We have seen but few actors who would do so much to present the ideal of one character in an evening as Mr. Dickens does to present twenty.” All had sought to profit from Dickens’ popularity. Despite the fact that Dickens had agreed to grant sole photographic rights to

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New York photographer Jeremiah Gurney & Son, the New York Daily Tribune boasted that they arranged for Dickens to sit for a portrait at the Matthew Brady studio. They hadn’t and he didn’t. However, they proudly invited the public to view it. Gurney protested, claiming it was a fake. It wasn’t. Until modern investigation proved Gurney was right, Brady had somehow come to possess an 1861 photograph of Dickens taken in England and doctored it in the darkroom to create a new photograph. As Christmas neared, Dickens resumed readings in Boston.. In the Boston audience that night was a Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks who owned a large-scale factory in Johnsburg Vermont. After the performance, Mrs. Fairbanks found her husband staring into the fire back at their apartments in Boston. She asked what it was that had him so deep in thought. After seeing Dickens’ Christmas Carol tonight” he told her I should break the custom of we have hitherto observed of opening on Christmas Day.” On the next day the workers found the factory was closed just as they would find it the next year, and for many after. Each of Fairbanks factory workers received a turkey on Christmas. So, whether your favorite Scrooge was played by Alistair Sim or George C. Scott or Mr. Magoo or Disney’s Scrooge McDuck, there is no denying Dickens’ message comes through in the words of nephew Fred to Scrooge about the nature of Christmastime: …is a good time: a kind forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: And for the reformed Scrooge in all of us, another Christmas gives us all another opportunity to Keep Christmas well throughout the year. And so, to all gathered here, and to all of your families at home - as Tiny Tim observed “God Bless Us Every One!” Merry Christmas!

Brian Murphy stands next to the presidential box at Fords Theater, after a presentation of Dickens’ Christmas Carol Washington, 2014

Minibit by Rich Campagna

This is a summary of my experience of the trip to The Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House. This presentation only tells of a few events that happened during these two battles. Skirmishes, troop movements, and other strategic events were all happening at the same time. Grant’s plan was to attack all the armies of the Confederacy at the same time, so it wouldn’t allow any idle army to aid the army that was engaged in battle. Grant told Gen. Meade in April 1864 “wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.” Grant moves against Gen. Lee in his Overland Campaign. Meanwhile Gen. Sherman marches through Georgia. Gen Sigel moves up the Shenandoah Valley, who was beaten badly at New Market. Gen. Butler moves up the James River who is beaten at Bermuda Hundred. The Wilderness is an area of heavy and dense brush, thickets, and saplings which make it very difficult to move through and limit the visibility of the enemy. In battle, the area would be filled with smoke from firing arms and some units lost contacts with others. In addition, because of the dense woods, both artillery and cavalry were useless. Gen. Grant is in charge of the overall campaign. Gen. Meade is in charge of the Army of the Potomac. Gen. Sheridan in command of the cavalry. Grant is the 7th Union general to face Gen. Lee. Lee is outnumbered 2 to 1, but he picks this place to fight; he knows the cavalry and cannon are of little use to the Union in this second growth forest and thick underbrush. During the battle on the second day, Gen. Longstreet is wounded by his own men. Many of Lee’s officers were wounded and not able to perform their duties. In the end Grant gained no ground, but he was determined to keep moving south trying to outflank Lee to demolish his army. He planned to cut off Lee at Spotsylvania Court House, but Lee realized Grant’s move and got to Spotsylvania before him. Spotsylvania Court House, May 8-21, 1864 The battle lasted 12 days. At Laurel Hill, Gen. Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry held back the first of the Union troops arriving, thus allowing Lee’s troops to get here first. Gen. John Sedgwick was killed by a sniper’s bullet. The Mule Shoe: The Confederate weak point was a salient in their defense line called “The Mule Shoe” and around a slight bend in the trenches was the sight of 22 straight hours of combat called the “Bloody Angle”. This was the Civil War’s most intense hand-

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to-hand and close combat. The Union forces

Battle of Spotsylvania (Wikipedia) came charging out of the woods. The firing of bullets was so intense that it cut down a large oak tree. That stump is now in the Smithsonian Institution. When it ended, there was no clear victor as Confederates pushed Union forces back after they broke through the line. Meanwhile, Gen. Sheridan was moving toward Richmond, but was stopped at the battle of Yellow Tavern by JEB Stuart’s cavalry, but during the combat Stuart was killed. Grant finally left the field of action on May 21st, but he pursued and engaged Lee at the North Anna River, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and finally at Appomattox Court House. Answers to Civil War Trivia: 1. When did Saint Nicholas become associated with Christmas, and who was the famous Civil War illustrator who inspired this legend?

Thomas Nast, a political illustrator, created this famous image of ‘Santa Claus” This is Thomas Nast's earliest published picture of Santa Claus. Nast is generally credited with creating

our popular image of Santa. This illustration appeared in the January 3, 1863 edition of Harper's Weekly, and shows Santa Claus visiting a Civil War Camp. 2. Who wrote the celebrated winter theme “Jingle Bells” and where was he when he wrote this iconic Christmas song?

It is an unsettled question where and when James Lord Pierpont originally composed the song that would become known as "Jingle Bells". A plaque at 19 High Street in the center of Medford Square in Medford, Massachusetts commemorates the "birthplace" of "Jingle Bells," and claims that Pierpont wrote the song there in 1850, at what was then the Simpson Tavern. According to the Medford Historical Society, the song was inspired by the town's popular sleigh races during the 19th century.” Jingle Bells" was originally copyrighted with the name "One Horse Open Sleigh" on September 16, 1857.[6] The date of the song's copyright casts some doubt on the theory that Pierpont wrote the song in Medford, since by that date he was the organist and music director of the Unitarian Church in Savannah, Georgia, where his brother, Rev. John Pierpont Jr., was employed. In August of the same year, James Pierpont married the daughter of the mayor of Savannah. He stayed on in the city even after the church closed due to its abolitionist leanings.[7]"Jingle Bells" was often used as a drinking song at parties: people would jingle the ice in their glasses as they sung. 3. “Peace on earth, good will toward man…” name the battle that happened on Christmas day 1862, who was the leader, and what campaign followed?

• In December 1862, the dashing Confederate cavalry commander John Hunt Morgan used the holiday season to launch his famous Christmas Raid into Kentucky. The campaign saw Rebel horsemen savage Union supply convoys, destroy bridges and fight a series of skirmishes against Yankee troops. Morgan gained fame as the leader of the Ohio River Campaign

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4. What event inspired Longfellow to write “Christmas bells”?

During the American Civil War, Longfellow's oldest son Charles Appleton Longfellow joined the Union cause as a soldier without his father's blessing. Longfellow was informed by a letter dated March 14, 1863, after Charles had left. "I have tried hard to resist the temptation of going without your leave but I cannot any longer," he wrote. "I feel it to be

my first duty to do what I can for my country and I would willingly lay down my life for it if it would be of any good".[2] Charles soon got an appointment as a lieutenant but, in November, he was severely wounded[3] in the Battle of New Hope Church (in Virginia) during the Mine Run Campaign. Coupled with the recent loss of his wife Frances, who died as a result of an accidental fire, Longfellow was inspired to write "Christmas Bells"."I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem "Christmas Bells" by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.[1] The song tells of the narrator's despair, upon hearing Christmas bells, that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men". The carol concludes with the bells carrying renewed hope for peace among men

THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE PRESIDENT I am a person of color, but have never been a slave. Nor was my father, nor my grandfather, nor any of his family as far as he could trace a slave. At the time of which I write we were free negroes among nearly 500,000 free persons of color in this country, and yet while free, we were victims of the cruelest hatred and tyranny and the most absurd prejudice originating in that Southern curse, slavery. If at times my burden depressed me , it was because there were in the land persons convinced of the moral wrong of slavery and occasionally they were heard. To describe New England and most particularly, Boston and its environs as it seemed to my fresh eyes that spring of 1854, I must recapture its very special atmosphere, for I sensed currents of excitement that

could not be explained entirely by the quickened climate. There was energy abroad among New Englanders that I have not known at home. It was shortly revealed as a moral energy, a shining forth of conscience that charged the very air one breathed. I attended Salem State University’s forerunner, was involved in the Mass 54th assault on Battery Wagner and was the first Black Woman to teach Black children in the Civil War period. Who am I ? Joe Dipoli, President DUES ARE DUE! Please submit!

OCCWRT 2014-2015

MEMBERSHIP DUES Date:_____________2014 Name ____________________________________ Address___________________________________ City______________________State___Zip______ Enclosed is my check for :

Individual Membership $ 20 Family Membership $ 25

Annual Membership plus added Donation to Preservation Fund $_____

MAILTO: Paula Cunningham,

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Civil War History:

The incredible opportunities to learn and share our

heritage: The Civil War Round Table of Greater Boston Meetings: 7:30 pm on the 4th Friday of each month, Sept. to June President David L. Smith 781-647-3332 www.cwrtgb.com The Civil War Round Table of North Worcester County Meetings: 7:00 pm on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, Sept. to June, at the Leominster Historical Society 17 School Street Leominster, MA 01453 For information contact: President, Ruth Frizzell nwccwrt@comcast.net or www.nwrccwrt.org 978-365-7628 The Civil War Round Table of Central Massachusetts/Worcester Meetings are held at 7:00 p.m. on the 4th Wednesday of each month September to June at the Holden Senior Center Main Street Holden, MA For information contact: President Mark Savolis 860-923-2777 Civil War Roundtable of Cape Cod P.O. Box 1431 20 Main St. The Riverview School on Rte 6A 3rd Monday of each month, 1:00 p.m. Yarmouth Senior Center Fred Wexler, President, or John Myers, Programming at (580) 896-6421

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The Civil War Roundtable of the Merrimack P.O. Box 421 West Newbury, MA 01985 54th Mass Glory Brigade Foundation Ben Goff, Corr. Secy P.O. Box 260342 Mattapan 02126 (617) 254-7005 goffbf@juno.com President Emmett Bell-Sykes sykeswisdom@verizon.net 617-333-9970 54thmass@verizon.net The Greater New Bedford Civil War Roundtable Bob MacFarlane, Pres. 508-748-2197, revbobmac@aol.com Fourth Tuesdays at 7:00 p.m. 1000 S. Rodney French Blvd. New Bedford (thanks to Nadine Mironchuk, Northshore CWRT) Rhode Island Civil War Round Table third Wednesday of the month at the William Hall Library,1825 Broad Street, Cranston, R.I.; social hour at 6:30, meeting and speaker at 7:00. Chairman is Mark Dunkelman (NYVI154th@aol.com) Secretary is Len Levin (lenlevin5@hotmail.com) ANNOUCEMENTS OCCWRT pins are now available. The pins will be provided to all (paid up) members of the group. Additional pins are available at the meetings for $5 These are newly formatted pins and are spectacular.

A full video of the latest speaker can be found on the web site! Go to OCCWRT. Org. The Olde Colony Civil War Round Table can now be found on FACEBOOK! Major contributors to the Raffle:

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New Civil War Trivia: 1. Who said, "No pack of whining, snarling, ill-fed, vagabond street dogs ... ever more strongly produced the impression of forlorn, outcast, helpless, hopeless misery."

2. President Lincoln ordered work on the capitol dome to continue throughout the Civil War as a symbol of the Union…NOT! We learned this is just another Civil War urban legend. What was the real reason work continued 3. Ted Roosevelt as a boy famously witnessed the funeral of Abraham Lincoln. What other future President as a boy saw the end of a president of the Civil War? Bonus: name the 5 Civil War officers who went on to become President of the United States. 4. Thomas Jackson most famously was known as Stonewall, but he had a number of other nicknames, can you name another 5? Bonus: provide 5 nicknames for Robert E Lee (answers at the next meeting !)