November 2017 Vol XXXIII, No 3 Thurs Nov 9 James Dufresne: They Met at Appomattox Court House “From present indications, the retreat of the enemy is rapidly becoming a rout.” So wrote Philip H. Sheridan to Lt Gen Ulysses S. Grant on April 5, 1865, from Jetersville Depot, Virginia, three days after Lee’s army had abandoned the trenches of the fallen cities of Richmond and Petersburg and begun its flight west. From the start, Grant’s goal was not merely to pursue Lee’s army but to intercept it: to cut it off and prevent Lee from veering south and joining the Confederate army of Joseph Johnston in North Carolina. Grant wanted to bring this war to a conclusion, so he ordered his two top generals, Sheridan and Sherman, to keep Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia constantly on the move. Lee’s army was in dire straits with very little food and ammunition remaining. Lee had planned to resupply his army at various points along his march west; however, he had little to no success. Grant had sent Sheridan and his command ahead with orders to destroy any supplies or ammunition that Lee might be able to acquire on his route west. He was also to intercept Lee’s army on its route wherever the time and place would allow. Sheridan did get the opportunity to stop Lee and his army at a place called Appomattox Court House. Gen Grant had been corresponding with Gen Lee for a couple of days previously while both were on the march. They agreed to meet at Appomattox Court House to work out a plan of action for the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia. Jim’s talk is on what transpired after Lee and his forces left the trenches around Petersburg and Richmond on their trek west. Grant discovered that Lee had snuck out of the trenches, and so followed him with all his force, which amounted to almost three times the size of Lee’s. Jim Dufresne was the Librarian for the Grand Lodge of Maine for over twenty‐three years before founding the Maine Masonic Civil War Library and Museum in 2013. Located at 415 Congress St in Portland, Maine, the MMCWL&M is a research library, which is open to Capture of Confederate wagons at Sailor’s Creek. the public. Battlefield sketch: Alfred Waud. Jim is the Past President of the Masonic Librarian and Museum Association, an international organization with global membership. He is also a member and Past Master of the Maine Lodge of Research. He has had several articles published in the proceedings of the Maine Lodge of Research. Jim is a member of the Southern California Research Lodge, The Civil War Lodge of Research ‐Virginia, Quatuor Coronati Lodge No. 2076 ‐ United Grand Lodge of England. He enjoys his work as director of the Maine Masonic Civil War Library and Museum, doing ongoing research and working with others on their research projects. JLC CWRT meetings are the second Thursday of each month: 7:00 pm Morrell Room Curtis Memorial Library 23 Pleasant St, Brunswick ME Weather Cancellations: Channels 6, 8, 13 If the Library closes due to a storm, the meeting will be cancelled. Members will receive an email notification of cancellation from the CWRT Secretary. 2 News from Headquarters From the President – Dan Cunningham Wow, that was quite the storm. Lucy and I were without power for 3 days, and people in Harpswell looked like they might be without power for several more days. This would be a good time to remind you of our policy regarding cancellations due to bad weather. Basically, if the library and schools are closed, we will be closed. I will try to put a message on the major TV stations. Please note, we will err on the side of caution, as we want all of our members to be safe during bad weather. You’ll notice that we have a change of speakers for our November meeting. Tim Kindred will be unable to make it due to medical problems. Instead we will have Jim Dufresne. Jim spoke at our June meeting at the last minute when Tom Desjardin was unable to make it. Since he only had a few minutes to prepare Jim has asked to redo his talk, as he has much more information to present to you. My thanks go out to Jim for filling in for a speaker a second time. Several people stayed after our October meeting to meet with the Board of Trustees. One request that came from this meeting was that it would be nice to have the opportunity to meet and get to know other members of the Joshua L. Chamberlain CWRT. I’m usually at the library by 6:00 or a little after, along with several members of the Board. Feel free to come early and talk with members of the Board of Trustees or other members of the CWRT. If you come early enough there’s also an opportunity to help us set up for the meeting. A second request was to list the various duties and responsibilities of the Board of Trustees. A member mentioned that we ask for help sometimes and that it would be nice if people knew what kind of help we needed. To that effect we are working on listing the responsibilities of the officers of the Board, along with the various tasks we have at the meetings. We hope to have that done in the next few months. I hope you all weathered the storm well and that we’ll see you at our November meeting. As always, thank you for being a member and supporting the Joshua L. Chamberlain CWRT. 3 JLC CWRT Board of Trustees – 2017/18 President: Dan Cunningham (729‐9520) Vice President: Gardner Shaw (703‐472‐8618) Treasurer: Paul Lariviere (724‐2414) Secretary: Steve Garrett (956‐8729, cell 607‐9713) [email protected] Program Coordinator: Bill Attick (726‐4685) Members: Steve Bunker, Lucy Cunningham, Carol Manchester, Ken McAfee From the Editor – Lucy Cunningham Last month, when I sent out the October newsletter, several email systems rejected it. I work at Bowdoin College and have my email on their server, so I checked with their IT staff for an answer to this problem. They said that because of the increase in malicious spam emails, many systems have installed filters that will reject emails with links embedded in attachments. Because of this, Noma and I have decided to significantly reduce the number of links in “First Call”, and when we do put in a link, to make it inactive. Instead of clicking on the link to open it, you’ll have to copy it and paste it into your browser. Along with this decision, Noma and I are redirecting our “Around the Campfire” section to the purpose we originally envisioned—news about our members. If you send us something—long or short—about your participation in some Civil War‐ related event or trip, or about how your interest in the Civil War began, etc., then we’ll publish it. If we have no news from you to print, then that section won’t appear in the newsletter that month. You’ve probably heard by now that Noma and I will be retiring from the newsletter next season. We have accomplished our goals of showing you that the newsletter can be produced in an easy‐to‐create format (MicroSoft Word document saved as an Adobe Acrobat pdf), can be as long or short as needed, can have illustrations, and can be the reflection of the creativity of its editors. 4 We hope that one or more of you will be interested in taking on this task for the Round Table. Both Noma and I are happy to mentor you, to help you get started, and answer any questions you have. We hope to hear from you by January, so that the Board can make important decisions about the future of the JLC CWRT. Thanks. Treasurer’s Update – Paul Lariviere Quick Stats – Oct: Meeting: Oct 12, 2017 Speaker: Diane Monroe Smith ‐ Chamberlain Attendance: 49 Book Raffle tickets sold: 58 In‐Kind Donations: 12 books Book prizes distributed: 10 INCOME: NET Income for Oct: $535.00 Memberships $279.19 $50.00 Book Raffle revenue NET Income this Fiscal Year: $17.00 Cash Donations $456.99 $3.00 Book Sales YEAR‐TO‐DATE $15.00 Silent Auction Bank Balance, Oct 31, 2017: $4,552.38 $620.00 TOTAL Cash Income for Oct EXPENSES: $45.00 Speaker Dinner $100.00 Speaker Mileage $115.81 Speaker Hotel $80.00 Post Office Box $340.81 TOTAL Expenses for Oct 5 Adopt‐A‐Speaker – Dinner Host Program In conjunction with its Adopt‐A‐Speaker setup, the JLC CWRT maintains a Dinner Host program. With this arrangement, members who donate to the Adopt‐A‐Speaker program at the “General” level have the opportunity to have dinner with a visiting speaker at Richard’s Restaurant in Brunswick. Under this program, the CWRT pays for dinner for the speaker, and the host pays for his/her own dinner. See the last page of the newsletter to enroll in the Adopt‐A‐Speaker program. Please contact Paul Lariviere (Treasurer) to make arrangements to host a specific speaker, at least one week before the program. Nov 9 James Dufresne They Met at Appomattox Courthouse Dec 14 Tom Desjardin Myth of the Chamberlain‐Spear Controversy and other Stories Jan 11 Frank Goodyear (at Bowdoin Museum of Art) Discussion of Rare Image of Lincoln Inauguration And other Artifacts of the Civil War Feb 8 Mike Bell The Iron Brigade Mar 8 Steve Bunker Civil War in the West Apr 12 Neil Smith Two Maine Regiments: 22nd Maine Infantry and 2nd Maine Cavalry May 10 Elizabeth Hallaet Mourning Customs during the Civil War Era Jun 14 Will Greene Battle of the Crater, Petersburg 6 Around the Campfire News about our Members Who Got the Better Statue of Ulysses S.