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FIRST CALL
Joshua L. Chamberlain
Civil war round table
P.O. Box 1046, Brunswick, ME 04011
October 2014
Volume XXX, No 2
October 9th Speaker - Ken McAllister, MD
Joshua L. Chamberlain: Through Illness and Death
with the Lion of the Union
The Chamberlain CWRT
proudly welcomes Dr. Ken McAllister on October 9, 2014. He will discuss his research on the wounds
suffered by Maine’s Civil War hero,
Joshua L. Chamberlain.
Dr. McAllister holds a medical degree from Emory Medical
School and Internship in Georgia.
He then served as Senior Infectious
Disease Fellow at the University of
Washington in Seattle. Later he
served as Chief, Infectious Diseases
at Brooke Army Medical Center.
Over the years, Dr. McAllister has served as an historian and
lecturer for many medical societies,
the Armed Forces Infectious Diseases Society, and the American College of Physicians. He also holds
several
Army
Commendation
awards, including The Order of Military Medical Merit.
He has been published in
several books and publications including Gabor Borit’s Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.
As he grew up in Georgia,
and after visiting the battlefield at
In this issue:
Speaker:
Ken McAllister,
MD
1
Admiral David
Dixon Porter
Book Review by
Art Banner
2,3
In God We Trust.
All Others Pay
Cash
By Jay Stencil
3,4
Bruce Catton: An
Appreciation
By Mike Bell
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Ken McAllister, MD
Chickamauga, Dr. McAllister became interested in how wounds
were treated.
“In the mid-1990’s I became
acquainted with the person and career of Joshua Chamberlain through
a trip to Petersburg, VA and an acquaintance with L.B. Butler, a
Chamberlain scholar. Through the
research availability from these
sources, I wrote an article describing, for the first time in medical and
surgical detail, Chamberlain’s pelvic wound. This led to an orthopedic paper describing all of his bullet
wounds.”
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Announcements/
FYI
Membership Info
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Next meeting info:
Thursday,
7:00 pm
October 9, 2014
Morrell Room
Curtis Memorial
Library, Brunswick
Speaker:
Ken McAllister,
MD
FIRST CALL
October 2014
Volume XXX, No 2
Admiral David Dixon Porter, by Chester G. Hearn
CW Book Club review by Arthur Banner, CWRT Member
This book was written by a single author who
writes in 2 voices. One is the voice of a poet, a wordsmith who conveys an understanding of the subject in a
profound and meaningful way. The second voice is that
of a journalist intent on reporting events but who is, for
the most part, blind to meaning and relationships. The
second voice ignores the reader in the interest of displaying his command of the facts.
Confederate South to Union invasion, first from the vast
American coastline, and then from the complex of continental rivers. Many former Union forts (controlled by
Confederates) defended both the coastlines and the rivers. It was these forts that became major targets of the
Union Navy.
Even
before
South Carolina seceded,
Porter found himself enmeshed in the political
machinations attendant
to the defense of the
coastal Forts Sumter and
Pickens. Through no fault
of his own, he was held
responsible for the loss of
Fort Sumter. However,
this episode is included in
the chapter entitled
“Intrigue at the White
House”, implying that
Porter’s attraction to
conspiracy was somehow responsible for his own difficulties, perhaps a portent of things to come.
The poetic voice is evident in the introduction,
which deals with the person of Porter and how he became the man that he was. According to the author,
Porter’s relationship to his father was the key to his personality and his worldview. This material is fleshed out
in the chapter headed “Legacy”. The relationship of David Dixon Porter to his father was responsible for the
person who became a national hero and who, at the
same time, became the troublesome narcissist who
seemed bent on his own destruction. His father was a
naval hero in the early 1800’s and got into difficulty by
invading the town of Fajardo in Puerto Rico in retaliation
for the unreasonable capture and detention of a U.S.
seaman. The U.S. Government decided that he had committed a diplomatic misstep, from which he would suffer
the indignity of a court-martial. The resulting disgrace
was too much for him to bear and he never resumed his
service, nor forgave his superiors for this perceived insult. Those events echoed in the actions of his son, who
also criticized his superiors, including his own “foster
brother”, David Farragut. Disrespect for superiors would
haunt Porter for his entire career. The sins of the father
were thus visited upon his son.
Although Porter was born to be a salt-water
sailor, it was on the rivers that he made his mark. River
warfare was beset with problems, which initially made
Porter a reluctant participant. Porter complained to Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Gustavus Fox, “The River
fell, vessels went aground, food ran short, supplies dwindled and the weather became so hot that crews worked
at night and slept during the day and were then driven
half mad by the swarms of mosquitos”. He then requested to be relieved of his assignment; but compelled
by duty and responsibility, serve he did, which was fortunate for the country. Moreover, Porter was well suited
to deal with the vagaries of the rivers.
The historic portion of the book begins with
Porter’s introduction to the sea. In a poetic fashion, the
author relates how Porter joined his father as a midshipman. Porter describes, “The vibration of the vessel as it
slipped into the Potomac.” Thus, Porter carried on the
tradition of his numerous seagoing ancestors. Trapped
by the baggage of his father, would he recapitulate the
honors conferred upon his ancestors, or would he ultimately fail? This is the ultimate theme of the book.
The rivers were a major resource to the North,
allowing the Union army to penetrate the South and to
challenge it at multiple points. The Southern strategy of
using interior lines to defend against the North’s superior numbers was thus negated. The rivers also constituted a major challenge. One could not predict the depth
of the river with any certainty. River obstacles were con-
By the onset of the Civil War, the salt water
Navy was Porter’s first love. However, as is common
with first loves, they are abandoned as the more urgent
needs of life intrude. The strategy of the Navy was not
to fight other ships on the open seas, but to pry open the
Continued on Page 3
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FIRST CALL
October 2014
Volume XXX, No 2
Admiral David Dixon Porter
(Continued from Page 2)
stant problems. A claim made by many generals was that
one could plan strategy, but the enemy always had a vote.
The same could be said of the rivers, which were both ally
and enemy. The fiasco of the Red River Campaign was a
chapter devoted to the vagaries of river warfare, which led
to trapping and potential abandonment of Porter’s river
squadrons.
he accompanied Lincoln to City Point by boat. Previously,
Porter had encountered Lincoln in the White House. They
were now on an equal footing. The boat was Porter’s domain, and Lincoln was the welcome visitor. Although the
author implies that Porter saw Lincoln as his father, they
were more like brothers, who took comfort in each other’s
presence. Reminiscent of how he regarded his own father, Porter saw Lincoln as almost deified, and a man who
was willing to sacrifice himself for others. It was as if Porter had had a terrible premonition of Lincoln’s death, an
echo of the death of his martyred father.
The river wars are described by the voice of the
journalist. The bulk of the book describes a series of river
engagements in a repetitious and tedious fashion, such
that each engagement resembles the other, until they
blend with one another and become inseparable in the
reader’s minds. The reader then becomes inured to their
significance, other than the suspicion that they are somehow focused on the taking of Vicksburg. Eventually Vicksburg fell, not as a result of some great crescendo of
efforts, but in a whimper as a result of a long siege and
enemy exhaustion. The result was so anticlimactic that
the reader barely realized that it had happened. Even
today, people fall prey to underestimating the importance
of the fall of Vicksburg. They regard the victory at Gettysburg as more glorious and hence more important.
After all is said and done, the story of Porter is
somewhat dissatisfying. He is regarded as a major figure
of the Civil War, yet he never achieves the stature of his
famous father or his “foster” brother. One cannot help
but to compare him to Farragut, whose relationship to
Porter is murky. They were not truly brothers, and one
cannot detect any filial affection between them in the
book. He always seemed to play second fiddle to Farragut. Today there is a monument to Farragut in Washington, DC, but there is no monument to Porter. Nevertheless, Porter should be remembered for the contributions
he made. This book serves that function, and those patient enough to tolerate the excessive and often irrelevant
detail will be rewarded with an ample description of Porter and the times during which he served.
The voice of the poet returned at the end of the
book when the author described the final encounter of
Porter with Lincoln. Porter first met Lincoln at the beginning of the war when plans were laid for the defense of
Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. Here Lincoln was new to
the finer points of military strategy. The same limitations
applied to Porter. Porter encountered Lincoln again when
By Arthur Banner
In God We Trust. All Others Pay Cash, By Jay Stencil
with Congress, which had control over coin inscriptions
since 1857. Nevertheless, Chase ordered James Pollock,
Director of the U.S. Mint, to devise such a motto for coins.
By late 1863, Pollock came up with “Our Country; Our
God” or “God Our Trust”, and Chase changed it to “In God
We Trust”. He also floated the notion for a one-, two-,
and three-cent coin.
Sources: The Washington Post April 27, 2014: “Civil War
150’” Sunday supplement. Article by John F. Marszalek:
“In God We Trust.”
Among the myriad of things that resulted from or
was influenced by the Civil War was the idea that the
United States was a Christian nation, and that God supported the fight to end slavery.
In April 1864, Congress did pass a largely unknown law that authorized a two-cent coin with the
motto, ‘”In God We Trust”. Toward the end of the war on
March 3, 1865, Congress expanded that motto to appear
on other gold and silver coins as well.
In 1861 an official from a small Pennsylvania
town had asked Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P.
Chase, to consider a motto inscription on U.S. coins reflecting that idea.
While Chase liked the concept, he needed to deal
Continued on Page 4
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FIRST CALL
October 2014
Volume XXX, No 2
BRUCE CATTON: AN APPRECIATION
By Mike Bell
As a young kid, when most of my neighborhood
pals were outside, I could often be found inside with a
book in my hands. Among the books I devoured in those
days was A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton. I still
have the original copy and have read it many times
since. That book opened my eyes, not just to the Civil
War, but to writing that made history come alive. I had
not read anything like it before. You could almost hear
the din of battle and smell the gunpowder
a difficult pill to swallow when A Stillness at Appomattox
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954. Catton’s career and focus
on the Civil War lasted many years, and his works constitute an amazing range of work. There was his 3-volume
biography of General Grant, a multi-volume history of the
war, and an additional trilogy on the Army of the Potomac
(Stillness was the final volume in that series). And with
apologies to James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom,
many still regard Catton’s single-volume history of the war
to be the best of its kind.
Catton, who was
a native of Michigan, was
a journalist out of college. As those early years
passed, he found himself
with a growing interest
writing about the Civil
War. He was inspired to
do so by the stories he
had heard from Civil War
veterans as a kid. His
considerable talents were
soon focused on history,
and not in journalism.
Catton was also the first editor of American Heritage magazine and edited numerous other books on other
aspects of the American story, including the book Four
Days, which documented the assassination of JFK. But it is
his expertise on the Civil War for which he is best known
to this day. Catton died in 1978 after a short illness.
I was lucky enough to have a family friend who
was his secretary for a few years, and she told me about
some of his research habits and desire to make history
accessible to the rest of us. Reading his books and talking
to someone who knew him? That made quite an impression. Not unlike how he got his start!
When you feel the need to have a reboot of Civil
War history, you would do well to grab hold of any volume
of Catton’s works. I suspect for most of us, it is simply a
matter of reaching for the bookshelf.
Although
over
the years in which he was
active, Catton was criticized by some for his narrative
style. His books found a wide and ever growing audience.
His volumes were always marked by solid research and
copious notes. Indeed it must have been, for those critics,
BRUCE CATTON
By Mike Bell
In God We Trust…(Continued from Page 3)
A day later when President Lincoln delivered his
Second Inaugural Address, Frederick Douglass noticed that
the speech was more like a sermon, but for some reason
Lincoln did not mention the recent coin motto legislation.
Perhaps had he done so, some folks might have seen the
motto as belief that the deity endorsed the Union’s war
effort. Lincoln advisors also may have felt it would evoke
a sense that God was on the side of the Union, Emancipation, and freedom.
and bars. Congress however saw this as an attack on religion and ordered the motto inscribed on all U.S. coins.
While it took nearly 100 years, by 1956 the law
was mandated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower requiring it on all U.S. currency; and, in 2011 Congress reaffirmed the motto “In God We Trust” as the official motto
of the U.S.
As for “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash”,
this motto has been used over the years in jest by some
retail merchants, who may have had a pretty good sense
of humor.
For several years after the war, Congress did not
mandate this inscription, which nevertheless continued,
sort of below the radar, until 1907 when Teddy Roosevelt
objected to it as sacrilegious. Apparently, he felt that
these coins were used everywhere, including in brothels
By Jay Stencil
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FIRST CALL
October 2014
Volume XXX, No 2
Adopt-a-Speaker
Announcement
As you may have noticed, the
JCCWRT does not have a permanent
President this year. We will have other
officers temporarily fill in during the
year.
In the meantime, if you would
like to help out in any way with the
Round Table and make sure that we
continue the legacy, please let us know.
The Board would like to keep annual dues for
membership in the JCCWRT at the current level, while
maintaining our high level of speakers’ presentations.
Please consider becoming a member of the "Adopt-ASpeaker Program”. You will be recognized in our
newsletter, or if you prefer to remain anonymous, let
us know.
Send your contribution to:
Treasurer at Chamberlain CWRT
PO Box 1046
Brunswick, Maine 04011
Or, give a check to the Treasurer, Ken McAfee, at a
meeting.
Below are the categories for your consideration:
General
$50.00
Lieutenant $40.00
Sergeant
$30.00
Corporal
$20.00
Private
$10.00
Other__________
2014-2015 CWRT OFFICERS
FYI
September 11 , 2014
Attendance:
64
Raffle Tickets Sold:
58
Raffle Proceeds:
$53
Media Donations:
Paul LaRiviere (2 books); Walter Chop (6 books); Joe
Lisi (1 book)
Thanks to our September Speaker: Dave Decker
President:
OPEN
Vice Pres.:
Mike Bell (624-2619)
Treasurer:
Ken McAfee (829-3251)
Secretary:
Jay Stencil (721-0235)
Board of Trustees:
Dan Cunningham (729-9520)
Bill Attick (726-4685)
Ron Kozlowski (725-4339)
Deb Milite (865-6268)
Al Prest (443-2296)
Sally Saunders (523-2433)
Program Director:
Bill Attick
We now have a new website
Public Relations:
Deb Milite
for the JCCWRT
Special Projects:
Ron Kozlowski
Mtg. Stats, Raffle:
Dan Cunningham
Newsletter & Website:
Nancy Stencil
New Website
joshuachamberlaincwrt.com
CIVIL WAR BOOK CLUB:
Contact: Jay Stencil at 721-0235
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[email protected]
for more information.
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Website:
joshuachamberlaincwrt.com
Email:
[email protected]
FIRST CALL
October 2014
Volume XXX, No 2
Membership Dues and Newsletter Information:
Dues are $25.00 per year ($35.00 family). Associate memberships for long-distance members are $15.00.
All membership dues include monthly e-newsletter.
Sign up at monthly meetings or by mail addressed to:
Chamberlain Civil War Round Table
P.O. Box 1046
Brunswick, ME 04011-1046
Please fill out this form and return
Type of Dues:
with your payment to:
New Member______ Renewal Member_______(with newsletter via e-mail)
Chamberlain CWRT
P.O. Box 1046
Brunswick, ME 04011-1046
Individual $25 _____ Family $35 _____ Associate $15_____ Student $15 ____
Battlefield Preservation Fund donation enclosed $________
(Note: CWRT Match to be capped at $120 for the fiscal year)
For CWRT use only___________
Please make check payable to: Chamberlain CWRT. You will be notified when your membership is due for renewal.
Name____________________________________________________________________________________________________
E-mail Address (required) ______________________________________________________Phone:_______________________
Address:__________________________________________________________________________________________________
City___________________________________________________State__________________Zip__________________________
“The Civil War is the crux of our history. You cannot understand any part of our past, from the convening of
the Constitutional Convention, down to this morning, without eventually arriving at the Civil War.”
Bernard de Voto
Joshua L. Chamberlain
Civil War Round Table
P.O. Box 1046
Brunswick, ME 04011-1046
Email:
[email protected]
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