GENERAL ORDERS The Newsletter of the Civil War Round Table of Milwaukee, Inc. Our 62nd Year and The Iron Brigade Association GENERAL ORDERS NO. 09-9 SEPTEMBER 10, 2009 September 2009 LANCE HERDEGEN IN THIS ISSUE CWRT News ...................................................2 Those Damned Black Hats at Gettysburg In Memoriam..................................................3 The Iron Brigade of the West marched to Gettysburg in 1863 and fought in the epic battle Wanderings: Hagerstown, MD .................4 of the war. The 2nd, 6th, 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana and 24th Michigan – 1,833 soldiers Announcements ...........................................4 in all – were thrown into the opening infantry fighting on the morning of July 1. When CWRT at Large ...............................................5 the Confederates first saw them, they called out, “There are those damned Black Hats! It Lincoln Bicentennial ....................................6 ain’t no militia! It’s the Army of the Potomac!” September Meeting Reservation............7 Late that afternoon, after a day of heavy fighting, when the Iron Brigade rallied on Cem- CWRT Calendar ..............................................8 etery Hill, less than 500 Black Hats rallied around their regimental banners. The famous Western Brigade, however, was all but destroyed and never again proved to be a mighty force in battle. SEPTEMBER MEETING AT A GLANCE The heroic “four hour long” stand of the Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan men helped September 10, 2009 save the key defensive high ground south of the city that ultimately forged the Federal “Those Damned Black Hats victory. The fighting above Willoughby Run, along the Chambersburg Pike, and at the at Gettysburg” bloody Railroad Cut, helped define the opposing lines for the rest of the fighting and, Lance Herdegen perhaps, won the battle that helped preserve the Union. “Where has the firmness of the Wisconsin Club Iron Brigade at Gettysburg been surpassed in history?” asked Rufus Dawes of the 6th 9th & Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee Wisconsin. continued on page 7 (Jackets required for dining room) 5:30 p.m. – Staff Meeting (Open to all members) 6:15 p.m. – Registration & Social Hour 6:45 p.m. – Dinner 7:30 p.m. – Program Dinner – $23 by reservation. Deadline: Monday, September 7, 2009 See page 7. Speaker and topic are subject to change. In case of inclement weather, listen to WTMJ or WISN radio. Lance Herdegen on sacred ground in Gettysburg, summer of 2009 www.civilwarwi.org CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE NEWS / CIVIL WAR NEWS Summary of Contributions Made by the Round Table Election of Officers $ 5,250.00 2001 to date Marquette University History At the July 16, 2009, Board of Directors Meeting the following Department – Klement individuals were elected, by the board, as our officers for a one- Donations year term: $ 750.00 09/15/2001 American Red Cross – 9/11 Fund Michael K. Benton, President $ 550.00 06/13/2002 Hunley Commission C. Judley Wyant, First Vice President $ 300.00 2003 Heritagepac Elaine Ottmann, Second Vice President $ 5,000.00 01/18/2003 City of Milwaukee Arts Board – Paul A. Eilbes, Treasurer Restoration of “Victorious A. William Finke, Secretary Charge” monument on Wisconsin Avenue Round Table Becomes Sponsor $ 2,500.00 04/21/2003 Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation – For acquisition of of the Kenosha Civil War Museum 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry The Round Table is providing a $1,500 grant to the Kenosha ID disc Civil War Museum. The Round Table will be a title sponsor for $ 250.00 04/05/2005 Soldiers Home Foundation the 2009-2010 lecture programs. The grant will help meet the $ 1,100.00 02/09/2006 Friends of Mansfield Battlefield honorarium and travel costs of the programs. The museum will – $1,000 on behalf of Dr. James provide appropriate recognition of the Round Table and the Iron McPherson Brigade Association in the form of a wall-mounted plaque and $ 5,000.00 06/28/2006 Lake Park Friends – Restoration a listing in all printed materials. The $2 fee for these programs of the E.B. Wolcott statue in will be waived for Round Table members attending the lectures. Lake Park Members are requested to show their Round Table membership $ 250.00 10/16/2006 Beauvoir/Jefferson Davis ID when attending these events. Further, the Round Table will Home Round Table challenge have the right of first refusal to provide sponsorships for future – Rebuilding after Hurricane years. Katrina The Round Table sponsorship will begin with the Civil War Mu- $ 250.00 10/16/2006 Milwaukee County Historical seum’s Holiday programming in December. Society – Trimborn Farm Donation $ 150.00 2006 & 2007 History News Network Iron Brigade Association $ 100.00 03/22/2007 U. S. Naval Institute Historical Round Table members can now designate their affiliation with an Foundation – In memory of Iron Brigade Regiment or Battery B. If you would like to make David Coverdale this designation, please see Paul Eilbes. $ 50.00 03/22/2007 Organization of American Historians In Search of a Publicity $ 200.00 11/08/2007 U.S. Grant Association – Committee Chairman Lifetime Membership to support Grant papers The Board of Directors is looking for an individual with public $ 1,597.00 2008 to date SUVCW Camp Randall Cannon relations experience to chair the Publicity Committee. If you are restoration project ($1,097 interested or know someone who may be interested in this posi- donated with $500 approved for tion, please contact our President, Mike Benton. 2009-2010) $ 1,500.00 07/30/2009 Kenosha Civil War Museum – To fund 2009-2010 speaker programming $ 24,797.00 2001-2009 Total Recorded Donations Camp Randall Dedication Ceremony Dedication for the restored second cannon carriage took place on July 25, 2009, in the GAR Park located at Camp Randall in Madison. The dedication took place during the 11:30 a.m. to 1:15 Gerard E. Dempsey p.m. Lincoln Bicentennial Observance. Wilmette, IL As noted, a $500 donation by the Round Table has been made for Gretchen Zirbel 2009-2010 towards the restoration of the third carriage. Wauwatosa, WI 2 In Memoriam End of An Era: William H. Upham, Jr. It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our Past tor Doolittle from Racine in Washington, DC. Senator Doolittle President and Commander of the Iron Brigade Association, Wil- took Upham to meet President Lincoln. President Lincoln was so liam H. Upham, Jr. Bill passed away on August 16, 2009, at 93 impressed that he used his personal appointment to send Upham of natural causes. Bill was born on July 15, 1916, in Marshfield, to West Point. After graduation, Upham guarded Jefferson Davis Wisconsin. He married Elizabeth Ann Dentz on September 10, at Fort Monroe, VA. 1937. They were the proud parents of William, III; Monie; and Bill, Jr., and Betty Ann, were instrumental in running our Round Darby. Table. With Bill’s links to the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln, he Bill served in the US Army from 1941-1946. He was a First Lieu- made history come alive for our Round Table. Our many speak- tenant and was awarded the Bronze Star with “v” device and a ers truly enjoyed meeting our connection to the Civil War. Purple Heart during the Normandy campaign. Like his father, he In 1990, Bill Upham and James Sullivan, sons of Iron Brigade survived a shell fragment that went entirely through him, missing veterans, voted to have the Civil War Round Table of Milwaukee all vital organs. carry on the Iron Brigade Association. Fortunately, Bill was able Upham worked at Schlitz Brewing from 1945 through 1952. He to take part in the ceremony to present a replica of the Iron Bri- then became an agent for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance. gade flag to our Civil War Round Table in May 2009. Both he and Betty Ann worked as agents until they retired at Bill will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. age 80. Our Round Table will miss Bill Upham as much as Bill missed Bill’s father, William H. Upham, Sr., was wounded at the First his father. Battle of Bull Run. He was captured and recovered in Libby Pris- on in Richmond, VA. Upham, Sr., was exchanged and met Sena- Michael Benton We shall meet, but we shall miss him. There will be one vacant chair… David Herbert Donald Kenneth Stampp Historian and biographer David Herbert Donald, who won two Historian Kenneth Stampp, 96, died of heart ailments on July 10, Pulitzer Prizes and was a preeminent scholar of Abraham Lincoln 2009. As a historian, he helped transform the study of slavery and the Civil War, died on May 17, 2009, in Boston while await- in the United States by exposing plantation owners as practical ing heart surgery. businessmen, not romantics defending a noble heritage. Dr. Donald was a longtime professor of history at Harvard and Mr. Stampp’s book, The Peculiar Institution (1956), powerfully other universities. He wrote three books about Lincoln; his 1995 changed the way slavery was presented in history texts. Accord- book Lincoln is widely considered to be the definitive biography ing to Leon Litwack, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who stud- of our 16th President. ied under him, Stampp was among the first mainstream writers to “When I started out, I wasn’t interested in Lincoln, and frankly devastate that comforting “magnolia-blossom interpretation of found him a tiresome old fellow who was rather long winded. As the plantation.” I grew older, I realized…what an extraordinarily adept politician Commenting on Stampp’s book, The Era of Reconstruction he was…. He was much more sensitive and human than I had (1965), southern historian, Edward Ayers, notes “Stampp showed thought before,” Dr. Donald said in a 2005 interview with the that the period after the Civil War marked not the willful and Associated Press.