Clark H. Lewis, President         Art & Carol Bergeron, Editors
P. O. Box 1122                    3901 Paces Ferry Road      
Richmond, VA 23218                 Chester, VA 23831-1239   

October 2002 PROGRAM

Dr. Gabor S. Boritt

"Lincoln's Odd Personality"

8:00 p.m., Tuesday, October 8, 2002, at the
Boulevard United Methodist Church, 321 N. Boulevard,
Richmond, VA (corner of Boulevard and Stuart Ave.)

Dr.  Gabor S.  Boritt is  the  Director  of  the  Civil  War
Institute,  Fluhrer  Professor  of  Civil  War  Studies, and
Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Lincoln  Prizes  at
Gettysburg  College.   He was born in Budapest, Hungary, and
came to this country  after  the  1956  Revolution.   Boritt
attended  Yankton College and South Dakota State University,
and he received his Ph.D.  in American history  from  Boston
University.   In  Vietnam,  he  saw  service with the United
States Air  Force.   He  and  his  wife,  Elizabeth  Lincoln
Norseen,  live  on  a farm outside of Gettysburg, where they
have raised three sons.                                     

Besides his duties at Gettysburg College since 1981,  Boritt
has  also  taught at Harvard, Darwin College, Cambridge, the
University of London, Washington  University  (St.   Louis),
Memphis State University, and the University of Michigan. He
has  also  been  a   research   fellow   of   the   American
Philosophical   Society,  the  Huntington  Library  and  Art
Gallery, and the Social Science Research Council.  Recently,
Boritt  served as an Historical Consultant and played a part
in the movie "Gods and Generals."                           

Boritt is the author or editor of more  than  fifteen  books
and is an acknowledged scholar on the sixteenth President of
the United  States,  Abraham  Lincoln.   His  books  include
Lincoln  and the Economics of the American Dream (1978); The
Lincoln Image: Abraham Lincoln and the Popular Print (1984);
Changing  the  Lincoln  Image (1985); The Confederate Image:
Prints of the Lost Cause (1987);  The  Historian's  Lincoln:
Pseudohistory,  Psychohistory,  and  History (1988); Why the
Confederacy Lost (1992); Lincoln,  the  War  President:  The
Gettysburg  Lectures  (1993); Lincoln's Generals (1994); Why
the Civil War Came (1996); and  Jefferson  Davis's  Generals
(1999).   His most recent publication was The Lincoln Enigma
(2001).  His presentation will focus on the many quirks that
made  Lincoln  such  an  interesting and controversial Chief
Executive.                                                  



Review of the September Program


"I  don't  know  anything  about  the  Civil  War,"  quipped
attorney  and  historian Gordon Rhea before taking questions
from the audience.  "I just know about the first 32 days  of
the  1864  Overland  Campaign."  Rhea peppered his talk with
allusions to the "nauseating detail"  that  listeners  could
find  in  one  of  his  four books about those 32 days.  The
overflow attendance and unprecedented lines to buy his books
before  and  after  the talk suggest that the members of the
Richmond Civil War Round Table have an  insatiable  appetite
for Gordon Rhea's detailed but engaging battle narratives.  

Before  delving into the battle of Cold Harbor, the topic of
his talk, Rhea offered a brief  overview  of  the  preceding
month of the Overland Campaign.  This background is critical
to understand a battle that Rhea believes is too often taken
out  of context.  Only by understanding what happened in the
weeks before Cold Harbor can students answer one of the  two
major questions that Rhea probed: what was Gen.  U.S.  Grant
thinking when he attacked the fortified Confederate position
at Cold Harbor?                                             

According  to  Rhea,  Grant  firmly believed that a month of
hard campaigning and heavy losses had reduced  Gen.   Robert
E.  Lee's Army of Northern Virginia as an effective fighting
force - both on the attack and on the defensive.  He deduced
this  from  the  failure to "spring the trap" at North Anna,
the failure of Gen.  Jubal Early's II  Corps  to  defeat  an
isolated Union corps at Bethesda Church, and especially from
the surprising weakness of Confederate forces at Cold Harbor
on June 1.  Only in hindsight is it clear that the attack on
June 3 was a mistake.  Grant had  every  reason  to  believe
that it would succeed.  Furthermore, because the Confederate
army was only seven miles  from  Richmond  with  its  flanks
secured  on  two rivers, Grant did not believe that he could
continue the campaign  of  maneuver  that  had  brought  the
armies from the Rapidan to the Chickahominy.                

The  grand  attack on June 3, 1864 failed not because it was
doomed, Rhea concluded, but because it was "one of the worst
botched affairs in the history of this campaign."           

After  dissecting Grant's thinking, Rhea explored his second
major question: what really happened in the  battle  itself?
As  with many Civil War battles, Cold Harbor has "taken on a
thick crust of myths." One of these myths  is  that  Federal
soldiers, anticipating the slaughter, sewed their names into
their clothes so that their bodies could be identified.   No
other sources confirm the story of these "premonitions" told
by Grant's aide, Horace Porter.                             

Perhaps the crustiest Cold Harbor  myth  is  the  number  of
Federal  casualties,  customarily  given  as 7,000 in a half
hour or less.  Rhea's analysis finds that Grant's army  lost
about  3,500  men - making it (only) the fifth bloodiest day
in the Overland Campaign.  The eyewitness accounts of  piles
of dead soldiers were not imaginary: the Federal losses were
concentrated - more than half of them were suffered by  four
green  units  recently  transferred  from  the  defenses  of
Washington and Baltimore.  The veteran units fighting  along
side of them suffered very light casualties.  Did the battle
cause a "Cold Harbor Syndrome" that  made  Federal  soldiers
wary  of  assaulting enemy earthworks?  Veteran soldiers had
learned that lesson already, Rhea  concluded.   Cold  Harbor
was  where the Army of the Potomac's new troops paid a heavy
price to learn the same lesson.                             

(The editors wish to thank John Coski
for providing the foregoing summary.)
 




 Announcements 

Holiday Shopper's Fair

Take advantage of  the  opportunity  to  get  some  of  your
shopping  done  early  this  year  by visiting the stores of
Richmond Museums - all under one roof!  The  annual  Holiday
Shopper's  Fair  at the Science Museum of Virginia this year
will feature a variety of  items  from  Museums  around  the
area.   Stop by The Museum of the Confederacy's booth to get
the Civil War buff on your list some Civil  War  memorabilia
and  neat stocking stuffers.  Museum members receive 10% off
at the special preview night on Thursday, October  24,  from
5-9 p.m.  The Fair will be open to the public free of charge
on Friday and Saturday, October 25-26, from  9:30  a.m.   to
5:00 p.m.                                                   


Annual Christmas Dinner

The Richmond Civil War Round Table's annual Christmas dinner
will  be  held  on  Tuesday, November 12, at the Willow Oaks
Country Club.  Our speaker will be  Dr.   Thomas  DiLorenzo,
author  of the best-selling book The Real Lincoln.  The cost
per person is $25.00.                                       

The meeting schedule will be as follows:
6:00-7:00 p.m. - Cash Bar 
7:00-7:45 p.m. - Dinner   
7:45 p.m. - Meeting begins
8:00 p.m. - Speaker       

All members are  urged  to  attend  this  Christmas  Dinner.
Please  fill out the form below, clip it out, and send it to
Brag Bowling, 3019 Kensington Avenue,  Richmond,  VA  23221.
Make  all  checks  payable  to  the Richmond Civil War Round
Table.  Let any interested friends know  about  the  meeting
and  tell them that they are welcome to attend.  If you have
any questions about the meeting, call Brag at (804) 359-0382
or contact him by e-mail at bragdonb@erols.com.             
____________________________________________________________________________


Richmond Civil War Round Table
Annual Christmas Dinner Reservation Form


Name _______________________________________________________________________

Address ____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

Number of persons attending _____________	Amount of check $___________

____________________________________________________________________________
 


RCWRT Monthly Speakers for 2002


Newsletter Deadlines

To facilitate the printing and timely  distribution  of  the
monthly  newsletter,  information for it should be submitted
to the editors no later than the following dates:           

October 18 for November
November 22 for December


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