May 2019 Round Table • Speaker: the May Meeting Promises to Be a Good One, with Our Wayne Motts Annual Cook-Out (Only $15) and a Presentation on Pickett’S Charge
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Volume 64 No. 7 May 2019 President’s Message May 2019 Round Table • Speaker: The May meeting promises to be a good one, with our Wayne Motts annual cook-out (only $15) and a presentation on Pickett’s Charge. It is also our annual business meeting where we elect • Topic: officers and trustees for the coming year. Pickett’s Charge The current board of officers and trustees met on April 25. A Battlefield One of our tasks was to come up with a slate of candidates. guide We have candidates for some positions but others still need to be filled. In addition, there are some non-elected committee • Date: posts where we need help. May 16, 2019 The elected offices are: • Place: 1. President. I am willing to continue in this role for another The Drake year. 2. Vice-President. Dr. Esly Caldwell is willing to continue. • Time: 6:00 - Sign In 3. Program Chair. Dan Bauer is willing to continue. 6:30 - Dinner 4. Treasurer: VACANT. Tom Williams is stepping away 7:15 - Meeting from this role, although he has volunteered to serve in 7:30 - Speaker the appointed position of Webmaster. In the past the treasurer has been stuck out front checking folks in and The Annual May Picnic hasn’t been able to enjoy the dinner table conversation. Possibly our new reservation system that we will be It’s Picnic time, featuring grilled hot dogs, metts, Angus using next year, might substantially eliminate the need to Burgers, baked beans, potato salad, relish plate, and ice collect money at the door. So we are looking for someone cream sandwiches; all outside in the garden and for the to handle normal treasurer duties. ridiculous price of just $15 bucks! You can’t eat that cheap at a McDonald’s. You also will not want to miss this month’s 5. Secretary: VACANT. speaker - His last talk at Cincy got rave reviews. 6. Newsletter Editor. Jeff Mikutis has stepped forward to Get your reservation in by Wednesday, May 8th. help in this role. http://Cincinnaticwrt.org/wordpress/contact/rsvp 7. Membership/Publicity Chair. VACANT. Our current chair, Wanda Langdon, is stepping down. O r call Es ly a 8. Trustees(2): ONE VACANT. Our current trustees, Tom t: 5 13-6 Breiner and Dawn Mowery, are stepping down. Our 07- 659 current Webmaster, Mike Rogers, has volunteered to 8 - Lea ve a serve as one of the trustees. mess e ag The appointed positions are: ( Continued on Page 2) (Continued from Page 1) For the first time, readers can march toward the Copse 1. Preservation Committee. Mark Silbersack will continue of Trees with Armistead’s Virginians, advance from the full as chair. Please contact Mark if you would like to serve on Order of Battle, and review a rare collection of artifacts the committee, or if you have a project idea or any other directly related to the charge. preservation suggestion. 2. Activities Committee. VACANT. Aside from one event Wayne Motts is a licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg that was cancelled for lack of interest, the Round Table National Military Park, was has not put together or coordinated any tours or other the executive director of the activitiesthis past year. If you enjoy such activities in Adams County Historical addition to the monthly meetings and would like to help Society in Gettysburg , and in this regard, please see me or one of the other officers. is the chief executive officer at Harrisburg’s National The Round Table has about 125 members, from many Civil War Museum. different backgrounds and with a broad range of skills. So it is not as though we don’t have enough talent. Motts is the author of Please consider volunteering a little of your time to keep several other works related the Round Table going. to the Civil War, including “Trust in God and Fear Nothing,” a biography of Confederate David Stockdale Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, who was killed during the battle of Wayne Motts, Our May Speaker Gettysburg. He has a bachelor’s degree in military history from the More than a century and a half after the event, the grand Ohio State University, and a master’s degree in American attack against the Union position on Cemetery Ridge still history from Shippensburg University. intrigues students of the Civil War like no other aspect of the Battle of Gettysburg. Wayne and his wife, Tina, are the parents of one grown child. His father, Warren E. Motts, is founder and executive On the afternoon of July director of Motts Military Museum in Groveport, Ohio. 3rd, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered more than 12,000 Southern infantrymen You wont want to miss Wayne’s thought provoking to undertake what would presentation. become the most legendary charge in American military The Reservation Deadline for dinner is Wednesday, May history. 8th at 8:00pm. Please remember to submit your dinner reservation at our website: This attack, popularly but inaccurately called “Pickett’s http://CincinnatiCWRT.org/wordpress/contact/RSVP Charge,” is often considered or call your reservation to Esly Caldwell, 513-607-6598. the turning point of the Civil Please leave a message if you do not reach Esly. If you are War’s most consequential making a reservation for more than yourself, please provide battle. the names of the others. After the war, one staff officer perceptively observed that the charge “has been more criticized, and is still less April Presentation understood, than any other act of the Gettysburg drama.” The April Round table was very pleased to welcome David Unfortunately, what was true then remains true to this day. Finney back after an absence of 30 years. We didn’t realize Wayne Motts and James Hessler teamed up with one of the how much we missed him and look forward to his return. Civil War’s leading cartographers to unravel the mysteries of Dave’s presentation about the Michigan Brigade was titled this attack. “Sixteen Summer Days, Custer meets the Wolverines – June Grounded in the premise that no better resource exists for 28 to July 14, 1863.” He enlivened his talk with many docu- understanding this unique event than the battlefield itself, ments and maps, and photographs from both the 19th centu- Wayne Motts book, Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg encourages ry and today. He also included many historical vignettes and its readers to explore this storied event from a wide variety of post-war biographies of the soldiers and participants in the perspectives. events of those 16 days. (Continued at the top of this page) - 2 - (Continued on Page 3) (Continued from Page 2) urged them forward and with their rapid firing rifles they succeeded in picking off a number of the Confederate gun- When the war broke out Michigan Supreme Court Justice ners and forcing Gen. Fitzhugh Lee to send reinforcements to Joseph Tarr Copeland and Detroit newspaperman Thornton prevent his guns from being captured. Brodhead, both of whom had been involved in state military One of the many interesting vignettes David Finney told affairs for some time, offered their services. Brodhead, who was of visiting the Forney farm house, a private home that was heavily involved in Detroit politics, was appointed colo- had been used as a hospital to treat both Union and Confed- nel of the 1st Michigan Cavalry. Copeland, who had served as erate wounded from the battle of Hanover. He displayed a Paymaster of Michigan troops in the Mexican War and was a photograph he had taken of the floor that still showed large member of the West Point Board of Visitors, was appointed bloodstains. And he told of the current owners’ discovery, its lieutenant colonel. Copeland suggested to Brodhead that when they were excavating for a swimming pool next to the they organize another cavalry regiment, to be equipped with house, of bones from the many limbs the surgeons had am- seven-shot Spencer repeating rifles rather than sabers. With putated. Brodhead’s support Copeland sent a letter to Michigan’s gov- ernor recommending such a regiment. The governor agreed As the Battle of Gettysburg was raging on July 1, Kirkpat- and a new regiment, the 5th Michigan Cavalry was formed rick’s division was called back toward Gettysburg. On July 2, July 28, 1862, as a rifle regiment with Copeland as its colo- the division took a position at Hunterstown, north of Gettys- nel. Eventually two more cavalry regiments were formed: the burg. On a ridge just to the south of Hunterstown along the 6th as a rifle unit and the 7th as a saber unit. In November, road to Gettysburg, Wade Hampton’s Confederate troops had Copeland was commissioned a brigadier general and given set up an artillery position. When Kirkpatrick gave an order command of the Michigan Brigade, consisting of the 1st, 5th, to Captain Thompson of the 6th Mich. to lead a charge against 6th, and 7th Michigan cavalry regiments. Four regiments the guns, Custer objected to Kirkpatrick’s bypassing the chain generally comprised a brigade in the Civil War. The Michigan of command, and announced that he himself would lead the Brigade, also known as the Wolverine Brigade, was unique in charge. As Custer advanced with his troops, a Confederate that it was the only cavalry brigade to be made up entirely of cavalry force rode out to repel them. In the melee Custer’s regiments from the same state. horse was shot and fell on him. Seeing Custer on the ground and a Confederate soldier with his rifle raised starting to take On June 27, 1863, the Army of the Potomac, with the Mich- a bead on Custer, Pvt.