Sam Craghead, President         Art & Carol Bergeron, Editors
4361F Lakefield Mews            3901 Paces Ferry Road      
Richmond, VA 23231              Chester, VA 23831-1239   

March 2001 PROGRAM

Joseph L. Harsh

"Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign"

8:00 p.m., Tuesday, March 13, 2001, at the
Boulevard United Methodist Church, 321 N. Boulevard,
Richmond, VA (corner of Boulevard and Stuart Ave.)
We will meet in the sanctuary this month.

Our speaker for the March meeting will be  Professor  Joseph
L.   Harsh.  Dr.  Harsh is a professor of history and former
chair of history at George Mason  University.   He  received
his  Doctorate  in  history  at  Rice  University,  where he
studied under noted historian Frank E.  Vandiver.  Harsh  is
the author of the trilogy Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E.
Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861-1862; Sounding
the  Shallows;  and  Taken  at  the  Flood: Robert E.  Lee &
Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign.  Taken at the
Flood  received the Jefferson Davis Award from the Museum of
the Confederacy and the Douglas Southall Freeman Award.   He
is   the   founding   president  of  the  Northern  Virginia
Association of Historians and was editor from  1980-1990  of
Courier of Historical Events.  His articles have appeared in
a number  of  professional  journals,  including  Civil  War
History and Military Affairs.                               

Professor   Harsh   will   speak  to  us  about  his  recent
publication Taken at the Flood and will focus his remarks on
the  Confederate  strategy during the Maryland Campaign.  In
his books, he has forcefully argued against  the  idea  that
Lee's strategy squandered Confederate resources and that Lee
lacked tactical brilliance.  Harsh persuasively writes  that
Lee's  military  operations actually allowed the Confederacy
to survive longer than it could  have  otherwise  and  might
have achieved Southern independence.                        


Review of the February Program

Our February meeting celebrated the 50th anniversary  of the
Richmond  Civil  War Round Table.  Bobby Krick opened with a
brief discussion of the early history of the group and  then
focused on our anniversary project-the revision and re-issue
of Mr.  J. Ambler Johnston's book Echoes of 1861 - 1961.  In
addition  to  his  tenure  with the Richmond Civil War Round
Table, Ambler Johnston was a trusted friend of Dr.   Douglas
Southall  Freeman  and  a  very  active  participant  in the
preservation of local Civil War history.  Late in his  life,
Mr.  Johnston reminisced about the early history of the area
battlefields and the personalities associated with Civil War
Richmond  in  the  early  20th century.  The book includes a
short account by longtime  Roundtable  member  Bill  Mallory
about  the  formation  of our group in 1951.  Our reprint of
this volume  includes  an  index,  a  listing  of  the  past
presidents,  and  an expanded section chronicling all of our
previous  speakers  and  their  subjects.   Mr.   Johnston's
original  driving  tour of the area battle area battlefields
has  been  updated  by  Sam  Craghead  to   reflect   modern
alterations  to  the  route,  and  that is in an appendix as
well.                                                       
J. Ambler Johnston

The first meeting of the Richmond Civil War Round Table  was
announced in the News Leader in January 1951.  At that time,
the group met in a cabin at Fort Harrison.  It was  a  small
gathering,  and  the  program was informal.  Bill Clarke was
the  first  president.   For  several  years,  a  topic  was
introduced,  and  all  in attendance had a chance to discuss
it.  A newsletter was begun in  1954.   Even  in  its  early
days,  the  Round Table held summer tours, and meetings just
prior to the outing frequently focused on the site or  sites
to be visited.                                              


Krick  then shared center stage with Mr.  Hobson Goddin, who
reminisced about his close friend, Ambler Johnston, and  the
history  of  the  Round  Table.   Goddin is descended from a
member of the  Goochland  Light  Dragoons  and  grew  up  in
Richmond  at  a  time  when  it  was, as he described it, "a
provincial city." Everyone knew each other.  In those  days,
he  said,  if  you  had  money,  either  your family had not
invested in Confederate  war  bonds  or,  God  forbid,  your
ancestor had married a Yankee.  Goddin spoke of visiting the
Confederate veterans home near where he lived.              

Some of the highlights of Richmond history that helped shape
his  love  of  the  Civil  War were the parades in which the
Richmond  Light  Infantry  Blues,  Richmond  Howitzers,  and
Richmond  Grays  participated; the opening of "Gone With the
Wind" at Lowell's Theater; and local  reenactments  such  as
those  of  the  Battle  of the Crater in Petersburg when the
Virginia  Military  Institute  cadets  would   portray   the
victorious  Confederates.   Of  course,  the  publication of
Douglas Southall Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants  added  to  his
growing interest in the war.                                

In  1953,  Mr.   Goddin  saw a notice in the newspaper for a
Round Table meeting and joined  the  organization.   It  was
then  meeting at the Branch Hotel.  Later the group moved to
the Congregational Church and, after a  few  years,  to  our
current  meeting  site.  Most of the talks he remembers were
given by  the  members  rather  than  guest  speakers.   The
organization  even sponsored for a time the Prison Civil War
Round Table, with a yearly lecture given to the prisoners.  

Copies of Echoes of 1861-1961 are now  available  for  sale.
The  cost  to  members is $17.00 plus shipping.  No shipping
charges  will  be  added  if  members  pick  up   the   book
themselves.                                                 


Announcements


Museum of the Confederacy

The Museum of the Confederacy Evening  Series  Lectures  for
2001  will  be "The Debate over Black Confederates, Then and
Now." Programs will be held in the auditorium of the Library
of Virginia, 800 E.  Broad St., Richmond, Virginia.  Programs
are free of charge, but seating is limited and  reservations
are  required.   Please call (804) 649-1861 ext.  10 to make
reservations.                                               

On Wednesday, March 14, at 5:30 p.m., Dr.  Robert F.  Durden,
of  Duke  University  and author of the prize-winning study,
The  Gray  and  the  Black:  The   Confederate   Debate   on
Emancipation, will deliver a lecture of the same title.     

The  final  program  will be on Wednesday, March 28, at 5:30
p.m.  It will be a Panel Discussion  on  Black  Confederates
featuring  Dr.   Edward C.  Smith, Director of the Civil War
Institute at American  University  and  author  of  "Calico,
Black  and  Gray:  Women  and  Blacks  in  the Confederacy;"
Professor Ervin  L.   Jordan,  Jr.,  of  the  University  of
Virginia  and  author of Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees
in Civil War Virginia; and Dr.  Arthur  W.   Bergeron,  Jr.,
Historian   at   Pamplin   Historical  Park  and  author  of
"Louisiana's Free  Men  of  Color  in  Gray"  and  Guide  to
Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861-1865.            


Pamplin Historical Park

One of the area's top Civil War events of the year will take
place  March  31-April  1 when Pamplin Historical Park & The
National Museum of the Civil War Soldier hosts  it's  annual
"Breakthrough  Weekend."  The  event  will feature infantry,
cavalry, and artillery tactical exercises and drills as well
as  combined arms demonstrations.  Civil War photography and
Signal Corp demonstrations will occur throughout both  days,
along with civilian and plantation life living history.     

Pulitzer-prize nominee Jay Winik will lecture on the subject
of his new book April 1865: The Month That Saved America and
park  executive director Will Greene will speak on his book,
Breaking the Backbone of the Rebellion.   Greene  and  Winik
will each conduct book signings as well.                    

Pamplin  Historical  Park  is  located at 6125 Boydton Plank
Road  (take  I-85,  exit  63-A),   Petersburg.    For   more
information, call 804-861-2408 or visit www.pamplinpark.org.


Member Asks for Assistance

Bobby Krick is seeking a tape recording of the talk given to
the  Round  Table  by Andrew Lytle in November 1983.  Anyone
who has or knows of  such  a  recording  should  call  Bobby
during the day at 226-1981.                                 


Spring Field Trip

Brag Bowling wants to thank everyone who signed up  for  the
Spring  Field  Trip.   It is sold out.  The group will leave
from the parking lot of the shopping  center  at  Brook  and
Parham Road (where the Lowes and Walmart stores are located)
at 6:30 a.  m.  SHARP on April 21.  Please  bring  your  own
lunch.   Anyone  who  has  signed  up  to  meet the group in
Manassas should park your car at the Manassas Visitor Center
and be there by 8 a. m.  The bus will pick you up there.  We
will return in the late afternoon.  Brag would like to  hear
any suggestions for the fall tour.                          


Connecticut Civil War Round Table

The Connecticut Civil War Round Table is sponsoring two  bus
trip/battlefield  tours  this summer and is inviting members
of other Round Tables to join them.  "Confederate Gettysburg
from  McPherson's  Ridge  to  Pickett's Charge" will be held
June 21-23.  Tour guides for this program will  be  John  M.
Priest   and  Michael  Phipps.   Evening  lectures  will  be
presented by Dr.  Richard J.  Sommers,  Jay  Jorgensen,  and
David  A.   Ward.   "R.   E.   Lee's  Maryland Campaign from
Harper's Ferry to the Bloody Lane" will be held July  12-14.
John  M.   Priest  and  Dennis  E.   Frye will serve as tour
guides.  Evening lectures will be presented by  Dr.   Joseph
L.  Harsh, Ted Alexander, and Dennis E.  Frye.              

Informational   flyers   and   registration  forms  will  be
available at our March meeting.  If we run  out  of  flyers,
interested  members  can  contact:  David  A.  Ward, Program
Chairman, Connecticut Civil War Round  Table,  P.   O.   Box
800,  c/o  The  Hotchkiss  School, Lakeville, CT 06039-0800;
phone        (860)        435-3244        or         e-mail:
dward@mail.hotchkiss.pvt.k12.ct.us                          


From the Editors

We welcome submissions to the monthly  newsletter,  although
we  cannot  always  include  them due to space restrictions.
Please send potential items to us  no  later  than  eighteen
(18) days prior to the meeting date.                        


Richmond Civil War Round Table  in  Cyberspace.   The  Round
Table's  Web  site  includes the monthly newsletter, CW book
reports, photographs, other CW web site links, and a list of
forthcoming speakers.  The URL or Web address is:           

www.rcwrt.org
or just
rcwrt.org


Richmond Civil War Round Table Newsletter
Art & Carol Bergeron, Editors
3901 Paces Ferry Road
Chester, VA 23831-1239