Patrick H. Breen will talk about his book The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood.

“[A] fascinating account of the 1831 Nat Turner rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, and its aftermath. The book provides both an excellent narrative history of the events and an analytic framework to examine important issues in southern historiography....The Land Shall Be Deluged in Blood is a significant contribution to the literature on Turner and the 1831 uprising. It is highly recommended to those interested in the Turner rebellion, slave resistance, and the coming of the Civil War.”
—Michael W. Coffey, The North Carolina Historical Review

Patrick H. Breen is Associate Professor of History at Providence College. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Georgia.

Ulysses S. Grant’s reputation as a general has never been without controversy. From his earliest days of command to the present day, there has been an abundance of both praise and blame for his generalship. The eminent Civil War historian, Bruce Catton, was on the praise side of this debate and made the case for Grant’s greatness in three books: Grant Moves South, Grant Takes Command, and U.S. Grant and the American Military Tradition. This talk will examine Catton’s arguments in favor of Grant and elaborate the key points Catton makes about Grant’s generalship from Fort Henry to Appomattox.

Doors open at 5:15PM for social hour.
Meeting begins at 6:00PM.

A native of Hagerstown, Maryland, Steven Stotelmyer has a B.S. from Frostburg State College, and a Master of Arts from Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. He is a Navy veteran. He has taught in the Washington County Public Schools for 10 years. He has walked the Antietam battlefield since he was a young child growing up nearby.

Steven's talk will be based on his book Too Useful To Sacrifice: Reconsidering the Generalship of George B. McClellan during the Maryland Campaign.

Save the Date

Reservations required. Please order your tickets this month. Tickets are $37 and you are encouraged to bring a guest, or more! You'll find an order form in the November Flagbearer.

Century House 107 Main Street, Acushnet, MA | Directions

Associate Professor, College of Distance Education
Program Manager, Graduate Degree Education
U.S. Naval War College, Newport, R.I.
Lt. Cmdr., U.S. Navy, Retired

David’s presentation to the Roundtable will focus on the trial defense of Henry Wirz, Commander of the Prisoner of War Camp at Andersonville, Georgia, and the legal team from the law firm Hughes, Denver, and Peck. Would they break new ground and use the “Nuremberg “ defense? This defense is based on the idea that a defendant should not be punished if illegal acts committed were the result of orders received from superiors. David’s research will focus on these issues.

David has been with us before and has the reputation of being thorough and thought provoking. We hope you will consider attending and please bring a friend.

This presentation will focus on Shaw’s military career prior to taking command of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in 1863.

Kevin has taught history full and part-time at Gann Academy in Waltham. You can find his op-eds in The new York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazines, Civil War Times, and the Civil War Monitor. He has appeared on the Black News Channel, C-Span, NPR, Al-Jazerra, BackStory With the American History Guys, and Vox. He has been a participant in workshops at the National Park Service, Civil War Trust, Organization of American Historians, Ford’s Theater, The Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Megan Kate Nelson, Ph. D returns to the
New Bedford Civil War Roundtable.

She will introduce her latest book, “Saving Yellowstone”.

Each year nearly four million people visit Yellowstone National Park, but few know the fascinating and complex historical context in which it was established. In late July 1871, the geologist-explorer Ferdinand Hayden led a team of scientists through a narrow canyon into Yellowstone Basin, entering one of the last unmapped places in the country. The survey’s discoveries led to the passage of the Yellowstone Act in 1872, which created the first national park in the world.

Author Megan Kate Nelson examines the larger context of this American moment, illuminating Hayden’s survey as a national project meant to give Americans a sense of achievement and unity in the wake of a destructive civil war.

Saving Yellowstone follows Hayden and two other protagonists in pursuit of their own agendas: Sitting Bull, a Lakota leader who asserted his peoples’ claims to their homelands, and financier Jay Cooke, who wanted to secure his national reputation by building the Northern Pacific Railroad through the Great Northwest. Hayden, Cooke, and Sitting Bull staked their claims to Yellowstone at a critical moment in Reconstruction, when the Grant Administration and the 42nd Congress were testing the reach and the purpose of federal power across the nation.

A narrative of adventure and exploration, Saving Yellowstone is also a story of indigenous resistance, the expansive reach of railroad, photographic, and publishing technologies, and the struggles of Black southerners to bring racial terrorists to justice. It reveals how the early 1870’s were a turning point in the nation’s history, as white Americans ultimately abandoned the higher ideal of equality for all people creating a much more fragile and divided United States.

Megan has a BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. She has also taught U.S. history and American Studies at Texas Tech University, Cal State Fullerton, Harvard, and Brown. Megan is a recipient of a 2017 NEH Public Scholar Award.

Learn more about Megan on her website, and follow her on Twitter.

• Please bring a dessert to share with everyone.
• Cost $15 per person donation at the door.
• This will be a catered event with hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, pasta salad, corn on the cob, watermelon, and chips.
• Guests and family are welcome.
• The Joseph Langlois Book Award recipients will be special guests.
• Larry Roy will have music for us to enjoy.
• Peter Rioux will once again conduct a table vs. table Civil War Trivia Pursuit contest.
• There will be a short business meeting; a vote on a new slate of officers for the 2022-2023 season.

Low Tide Yacht Club, 1000 Rodney French Blvd.
Fort Taber Park, New Bedford

Remembrance Service in the Civil War Section of the Cemetery. Keynote speaker is scheduled to be New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell.

Rural Cemetery, 149 Dartmouth St, New Bedford (directions)

It was October 1864. The confederate ironclad CSS Albermarle had sunk two federal warships and damaged seven others, taking control of the Roanoke River. Twenty-one year old navy lieutenant William Barker Cushing hatched a daring plan: to attack the fearsome warship with a few dozen men in two small wooden boats. What followed, the close-range torpedoing of the Albermarle and Cushing’s harrowing two-day escape downriver is one of the most dramatic individual exploits in American military history.

Theodore Roosevelt said that Cushing “comes next to Farragut on the hero roll of American naval history” but most have never heard of him today.

A thrilling narrative biography, steeped in tactics, weaponry, and battle techniques of the Union Navy, Commander Will Cushing brings to life a compelling but flawed figure. Along with three brothers, including the one that fell at Gettysburg, Cushing served with bravery and heroism. But he was irascible and complicated—a loveable rogue, prideful and impulsive, who none-the-less possessed a genius for combat.

In telling Cushing’s story, Malanowski paints a vivid, memorable portrait of the army official, engineers, and politicians scrambling to win the war.

We are pleased to be a part of Jamie’s New England tour.