Our Patron Saints OUR MOTTO: Don’t use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice MINIE John Ford Shelby Foote
o v e m b e r u m b e r N 2013. N 461 Official Newsletter of theNEWS American Civil War Round Table of Australia Inc.
In this MN From the Editors 2 Gettysburg Address 3 Crompton’s Rave 4 CSS Shenandoah 6 The Hour of Peril 8
Our Next Meeting Wednesday 27th November Meeting to be held at the Retreat Hotel 226 Nicholson Street Abbotsford. Drinks and congenial talk at the bar with meals 6.30 to 8.00. Formal proceedings kick off at around 7.30pm sharp (approx) thereabouts! Upstairs in the still magnificent CSS Shenandoah CSS Carringbush Room. Our meetings are scheduled for the 4th Wednesday of each month except December.
Th e c l u b n o w p r o v i d e s Fr e e Lecture: – c o ff e e a n d t e a t o m e m b e r s a t t h e i n t e r v a l e a c h m e e t i n g . a Byard Sheppard Special !!
Quotable Quotes Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. John Fitzgerald Kennedy http://acwrta.tripod.com As Frank would sing…One for my baby The and one more for the road… American Civil War Round Table of Australia from the editors President: Dale Blair Warren & Ross P.O. Box 59, Emerald, Vic, 3782 Ph 5968 4547 Email: [email protected] Vice-President: Chris Hookey 2 Burnside Avenue, Canterbury, Vic, 3126 Ph 9888 5744 Email: [email protected] Secretary: Ian Caldwell 47 Pavo Street Belmont, Vic, 3216 [email protected] Welcome to the November 2013 edition of MN. Treasurer: Jeff Yuille The month of November tolls the bell for the final meeting of the year for theACWRTA. Byard 41 Hampstead Drive Sheppard will be officiating at this meeting. We have absolutely no idea of the content of his Hoppers Crossing, 3029 presentation but going on past results we should be in for a good evening. Ph 9748 7996 Mob 0412 523 199 Your editors made it back to the land of Oz from the vibrant Southwest USA with wonderful Email: [email protected] memories and enough photos to reconstruct the trip almost hour by hour! Digital photography Public Officer & has taken the cost out of holiday snaps and our digital devices today are clogged with thousands Correspondence Secretary: of very poor photos that we somehow feel the world needs. It is only the bravest of us who Barry Crompton actually ditch our dodgy photos. PO Box 4017, November sees the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Speech and the 50th anniversary Patterson, Vic, 3204 Ph 9557 7872 of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Editor Warren has no idea what he was doing Email: [email protected] for the former but has indelible memories of that fateful day on November 22nd 1963. Back in Lincoln’s day with less media, fewer people would have been present to hear the Newsletter Editors: Warren Davey oration and it would have been days later that the full text of the short speech would have spread 85 Yarra St, Williamstown, 3016 across the country. Lincoln’s speech took time to create a head of steam until it arrived at its Ph 9391 6146 iconic status we accept today. But with JFK, the act, and its repercussions were pretty much [email protected] instantaneous with a massive worldwide coverage. Ross Schnioffsky Garry Wills book on the Gettysburg Speech is a revelatory piece of non fiction writing and a 104 River St, Newport, 3015 wonderful explication of the context and background to the famous speech. As Far as Kennedy Ph 9391 0106 is concerned there is a whole host of books of varying quality analyzing his life in ways not [email protected] to dissimilar to that of Lincoln and also a good deal of forensic tomes trying to sort out what actually happened in Dealy Plaza, Dallas and the roller coaster days that followed. Secretary/Treasurer A big thanks to our “President’s Eleven” who took the floor at the October meeting.Y our editors (Sydney Organisation) were sorry to have missed the presentations but according to the venerable view of our Barry Brendan O’Connell P O Box 200 they were all successful and well worth the attention. St. Ives, Sydney Here’s hoping for a good roll up at the Retreat to finish the year in fine style and we wish Byard NSW 2075 all the very best on his cagey approach to his November presentation. Cheers. Tel: 2 9449 3720 Fax: 2 9988 4067 Email: [email protected]
Du e s $AUS 25.00 f o r d i g i t a l n e w s - l e t t e r o r $AUS 30.00 f o r a s n a i l m a i l n e w s l e t t e r p a y a b l e t o 50 Years... ACWRTA, C/O Tr e a s u r e r , Je f f Yu i l l e John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Henry Fonda as Young Mr Lincoln (1938) 1917-1963 November MINIE NEWS 2013 2 ABRAHAM GETTYSBURG LINCOLN ADDRESS
Delivered on 19th November 1863
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate-we can not consecrate-we can not hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they Attention did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated all here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for Round Table us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining Members before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave The Round Table has now joined the 21st century with the creation of our own Face the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly Book page. To join log on to Facebook resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the Byard Sheppard Face Book Moderator people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
3 November MINIE NEWS 2013 Prime Minister was jubilant and scenes of Aussies at home celebrating were broadcast on the local TV. A week later I Nights at the arrived in America to begin a tour of the battlefields and Round Tables, one of my first jobs was to give a talk at the CWRT Round Table of San Francisco at the Presidio. On my arrival, the president of the Round With Table and her husband (Margaret and Ken Fitzgibbons) had put together a sign “Aussie Go Home” in jest. Fortunately Barry Crompton the talk went down a treat, I enjoyed a few days in San Francisco and went on my way after that to the eastern states Two days to go and we get to commemorate the one hundred and and more Round Table meetings, fondly fiftieth anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. remembering the time that the Aussies Curiously, the United States Postal Service didn’t commemorate the came to the fore. centennial and have not organised one for this year either although the did get to issue a stamp for the eighty-fifth anniversary in 1948. However our friends in the Capital District Round Table of New From: “Leisa Lees”
Gettysburg Lutheran Theological Seminary 5 November MINIE NEWS 2013 Melbourne’s Confederate connection, 150 years on
Words by Sally Stewart
were installed in 1867 on the shore had been Madeira in the mid-Atlantic, It became a curious book-end to a line and an ultra-modern ship was where Waddell had received orders to long and grisly conflict that claimed commissioned to represent Victoria’s sea load coal in Melbourne and then head to more than 600,000 lives and forever power.” the Pacific whaling grounds for the peak shaped a nation’s character. And it was That ship was the two-turreted ironclad June season. En-route south, Waddell played out in Melbourne, almost 150 Cerberus, which patrolled Port Phillip captured eight ships and took aboard years ago. Bay from 1870 until it was deliberately prisoners. In January, 1865, in the last months sunk to create a breakwater at Beaumaris Despite this, the Shenandoah was vastly of the American Civil War, the in 1926. short-handed. Its complement was only Confederate warship Shenandoah The arrival of the Confederate States’ 43 men and the ship was built for 130. sailed unannounced into Hobson’s Bay. Steamship Shenandoah in Hobson’s Was her secret mission in Melbourne to Staying 24 days, she secretly enlisted Bay on the evening of January 25, 1865 recruit crew for the Confederate cause? 42 men to fight for the Southern cause. shocked the young British colony – With permission granted, the ship In a curious twist, it was the settled less than 30 years previously. transferred to dry dock in Williamstown Shenandoah, with its small band of Queen Victoria had proclaimed the on the other side of Hobson’s Bay. Australian sailors, that fired the last Confederacy a power belligerent to Great “Australia Post made a special shots of the war. Years later the British Britain and here, suddenly, was one of Williamstown postmark for the 125th government would pay millions of its front line vessels on Melbourne’s anniversary,” said Mr Crompton. pounds in damages to the United States doorstep. Her eight heavy guns of three- “We’re talking to them about repeating because of the ship’s Australian visit. mile range could easily have pulverised something similar for the 150th.” “The Shenandoah had a huge the fledgling capital. In yet another twist to a story that impact,” said Barry Crompton of the However, the ship’s captain, Commander has all the makings of a buccaneering American Civil War Round Table in James Waddell from North Carolina, movie, Melbourne writer Paul Williams, Australia (pictured right), a group of declared neutrality, asking Governor in a soon-to-be-published book, CSS local enthusiasts planning the 150th Charles Darling for permission to take Shenandoah: The Untold True Story, anniversary commemorations in 2015. on coal and supplies, land prisoners and claims he has uncovered evidence that “Melbourne scaled-up its defences repair a broken propeller. Captain Waddell had an adulterous love because of the Shenandoah. Cannons The Shenandoah’s previous port of call affair while the ship was berthed in http://www.thecitizen.org.au/features/melbournes-confederate-connection-150-years
6 November MINIE NEWS 2013 Australia. to think about whaling itself. It was a great tale with many knock-on effects. “It happened in Melbourne and it was forerunner to the whole Greenpeace We’re talking to both the ABC and an with one of his prisoners, Mrs Lillias movement.” independent film producer about making Nicholls, who was a Yankee,” Mr Then, unwittingly, the Shenandoah’s a documentary.” Williams revealed. crew, half of them Australian, fired the Shirani Aththas, of the Australian “They were spotted in the city by the last shots of the Civil War – aimed at a National Maritime Museum, agreed: Master’s Mate, Cornelius Hunt. To be Union whaler in the Bering Sea on the “Yes, the Shenandoah was a very seen fraternising with the enemy like edge of the Arctic Circle – on June 22. In significant vessel and its Melbourne that was terrible at the time and he fact, the war had already ended. General visit is an intriguing and important story blackmailed Waddell. Robert E Lee had in Australia’s past. As we get closer “Mrs Nicholls’ nephew, Clark, is still surrendered two months earlier on April to January 2015, we will certainly be alive, living in Searsport in Maine. He 9; Abraham Lincoln had been shot dead looking at how [the museum] may be remembers her well: she didn’t die until on April 15. able to support the anniversary.” 1933.” Waddell gambled on more lenient Melburnians in 1865 were thrilled by The repaired Shenandoah sailed from treatment in England than in a Union the rebel ship. Over 7000 visitors were Port Phillip Bay on February 18. On court, surrendering the Shenandoah in shown around by the officers, who board were fresh supplies, coal and 42 Liverpool, England in November 1865 reported “standing room only” on deck. additional passengers. When the ship having been pursued all the way by They were besieged by invitations to entered international waters, all of the Union vessels. socialise. Boom-town Ballarat, the site of Australians signed on to the Confederate The dash paid off: captain and crew the 1854 Eureka Stockade cause using false names. walked free. At a roll call, none claimed rebellion, welcomed them as heroes and Waddell’s orders were to destroy Union British citizenship so the sailors fell a ball held in their honour at Craig’s merchant vessels, especially whaling outside of British jurisdtion, despite it Hotel on Lydiard Street ended at four in ships. Whalers were vital to the Union being recorded that many spoke with the morning. war effort because in the 1860s whale oil broad Scottish accents. The American Civil War has been called was crucial in the manufacture of arms. Not one of the Melbourne sailors who the last romantic war and the first modern The Shenandoah had both steam and sail signed on has been traced with certainty: war. A ball in Gone with the Wind dress power and sped to the far north Pacific all feared individual prosecution from the is planned in Melbourne, while Craig’s where, by June, she had sunk 38 ships, United Staes for piracy and once ashore Hotel plans to host a commemorative claiming 10 on a single day. in Liverpool, they vanished. ball in the original ballroom in January Such was her devastating success the But the Shenandoah’s blitz was not 2015. Illustrated London News reported that forgotten. In 1872, an international court The local Civil War enthusiasts hope the Shenandoah had single-handedly ordered Britain to pay millions of pounds to travel from Melbourne by steam driven the price of whale oil up from 70 damages to America for “improperly train. “But we really need a company pounds to 120 pounds a ton. allowing” her to increase her crew and to underwrite the commemorations,” “It’s been said the Shenandoah’s coal supplies in the British colony of said Mr Crompton. “Maybe an destruction of the whaling fleet changed Victoria. American company? John Pemberton, attitudes to whaling,” said Mr Crompton. “The Shenandoah is the only direct who invented Coca-Cola ... he was a “The oil price went so high it forced link between Australia and the Civil Confederate doctor in the Civil War.” people to consider alternatives and War,” noted Mr Crompton. “It’s a
Barry Crompton
I was asked to answer a few questions for a journalist university student who was preparing an article on the CSS Shenandoah in Melbourne and gave her some insight into what we thought about it.
7 November MINIE NEWS 2013 The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Daniel Stashower
stumbled across it while investigating Union. In the end, Pinkerton succeeds, potential sabotage of a railroad. Soon and Lincoln slips unnoticed through Pinkerton and his operatives were Baltimore ahead of schedule, averting navigating the dark streets and saloons danger. of Baltimore, trying to pry clues from The book unfortunately lacks endnotes Southern sympathizers. They eventually or a discussion of sourcing methods, determined that a mysterious group making it difficult to determine the intended to kill Lincoln when he pulled objectivity of Stashower’s reconstruction into the city by distracting police and and preventing this book from being a attacking the president-elect as he first-rate work of history. And there has Review by Del Quentin changed trains. been a long-running historical debate Wilber,February 15, 2013 Stashower, a novelist, smartly uses about the seriousness of the Baltimore the train’s journey as a narrative arc, plot; no schemers were ever arrested allowing him to tell the broader story of t was February 1861, and Abraham or charged with anything related to the I prewar America and providing insight Lincoln had just launched a 12-day conspiracy Pinkerton said he discovered. into the traits that would make Lincoln celebratory train journey from his Ironically, some of the blame for that such a great leader — his sense of home in rural Illinois to Washington, murkiness falls on Pinkerton himself, humor, calm demeanor and courage. where he would soon be inaugurated whose prickly personality and disputes The chugging train also injects the book as 16th president of the United States. with former Lincoln advisers have with momentum and suspense as it The country was in turmoil — seven clouded the results of his investigation. nears Baltimore; readers will cringe as Southern states had seceded from the But does it matter if the plot was real? crowds surge past policemen protecting union — and on the cusp of civil war. Or is it enough that the key players Lincoln, highlighting the president- Many wondered whether the country thought there was a serious threat elect’s lax security, which consisted of lawyer and one-term congressman had and took actions that provide insights just a handful of aides acting as ad-hoc the skills necessary to rescue the nation; into characters that would shape the bodyguards. others didn’t want to give him the country? The answer, as Stashower A key goal for an author of history is chance. Talk of assassination was in the ably demonstrates, is the latter: to persuade his or her readers to forget air. “Lincoln’s handling of the crisis and what they know and to relive the world Though we all know how the story its fallout would mark a fateful early as it unfolded for characters of the time turned out — Lincoln steered the country test of his presidency, with many dark — with outcomes uncertain. For the through four years of war and preserved consequences,” he writes, adding that most part, Stashower accomplishes that the Union — that ultimate outcome was “seen in the light of what was to come objective, and readers will be cheering hardly assured. As Daniel Stashower . . . the Baltimore episode stands as for Pinkerton and pleading for Lincoln to recounts in his dramatic “Hour of Peril,” a defining moment, making a crucial heed the private eye’s advice to abandon Lincoln’s presidency was very much in transition from civilized debate to open his scheduled events in Baltimore and the balance as a private detective and his hostilities, and presenting Lincoln with a instead slip quietly through Charm City. operatives raced to uncover a plot to kill grim preview of the challenges he would To the modern reader, this recommended the “Railsplitter” before he could reach face as president.” diversion makes complete sense, Washington. particularly in light of the country’s Stashower’s book revolves around the history of presidential assassinations and [email protected] efforts of Allan Pinkerton, a legendary near-assassinations — Lincoln would Del Quentin Wilber is a Washington private detective who claimed to have be slain at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. But Post staff writer and the author uncovered a plot to kill Lincoln during to those living in that era, the decision of “Rawhide Down: The Near his train tour’s last stop in Baltimore, is a far more difficult one — the country Assassination of Ronald Reagan.” a.k.a. “Mobtown.” This vital port had not yet lost a president to violence, city just a few dozen miles north of and Lincoln did not want to be seen THE HOUR OF PERIL Washington had strong Southern leanings as sneaking through Baltimore on the The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln and a reputation for notoriously violent eve of war. And he would rather not Before the Civil War street gangs. have alienated the Southern-leaning By Daniel Stashower Pinkerton hadn’t set out to uncover residents of Maryland, a border state he Minotaur. 354 pp. $26.99 a potential assassination plot but desperately needed to preserve in the November MINIE NEWS 2013 8