When: July 13, 2011

Where: Ohio Health Medical Campus, 300 Polaris Parkway, Westerville Ohio 43081

Time: 7pm

Speaker: Howard Strouse

Topic: “Amazing Grace: Champions of Abolition”

A native of Ohio, born during World War II, Howard has been fascinated with history from boyhood. Throughout his travels in 22 countries and 48 states, he has always been interested in how things evolved and how our country grew and protected itself. His particular favorite is the U.S. in the 19th century, especially the Civil War period. Mr. Strouse’s undergraduate work was completed at Columbia College and the University of Missouri, where he majored in criminal justice, with a minor in history. He obtained his first Master’s degree in Criminal Justice and Law, and his second in History and Government – both conferred with honors – at Webster University.

Presenter Howard Strouse

 

Serving in the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, he went on to a career as a Federal Special Agent with the Department of Defense. His final assignment, in a career that spanned thirty-five years, was as Chief of Industrial Personnel Security Clearance Adjudication for all firms (contractors) that required Federal security clearances to do business with the Department of Defense. Howard has given presentations at universities, Civil War round tables, libraries, social and fraternal organizations, history seminars and other history events. He is a Civil War re-enactor, portraying General Alpheus Williams (and sometimes, when his weight is trimmed, General George Gordon Meade). A Member of the General Staff of the Blue and the Grey, he is also a member and past General-in-Chief of the Columbus, Ohio, Civil War Round Table, and is currently an active member in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is also a participating member of the Lincoln Forum, and serves as historian/tour leader for the Civil War Education Association and the American History Forum.

July Newsletter

When:   June 8,2011

Where:  Ohio Health Medical Campus, 300 Polaris Parkway, Westerville Ohio 43081

Time:  7pm

Speaker: James G. Ryan

Topic:  G.K. Warren at Second Manassas

The actions of Major General Gouverneur K. Warren at Gettysburg are well-known to many members of our Civil War Roundtable. Warren, serving as the Chief Engineer on the staff of the Army of the Potomac, noted the importance of Little Round Top to the Army’s defensive position on July 2, and scrambled to get first Strong Vincent’s Brigade (and Charles Hazlett’s attached Battery D, 5th U.S Artillery) and then Stephen Weed’s Brigade of the Fifth Corps to divert to defense of the eminence, thus stabilizing the famed “fish hook” position of the federal forces. Warren’s actions are commemorated by an iconic statue at the summit of Little Round Top.

What is less known is Warren’s pre-Gettysburg career as an infantry commander in the Fifth Corps, and the bloody debacle his brigade of Zouaves faced on August 30, 1862 at Second Manassas. On that fateful day, Warren noticed that the Charles Hazlett’s Battery D, 5th U.S. Artillery was unprotected and moved his men to protect the battery. Unknown to Warren, Major General John Pope and his second-in-command Major General Irvin McDowell, were stripping the entire left flank of the Union army of its infantry, leaving Warren’s 1,120-man Brigade precariously hanging in front of the 25,000 man force that Lieutenant General James Longstreet was preparing to launch in a massive flank attack.

Jamie Ryan will discuss the actions of Warren and his regiments at Second Manassas, and relationship between the actions that day and those on July 2, 1863 in and around Little Round Top.

Jamie Ryan, 51, is a charter member of the Central Ohio Civil War Roundtable and has presented numerous topics to our Roundtable and other Roundtables around the State of Ohio.  Jamie has conducted extensive study of the Fifth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, and has visited every Fifth Corps battlefield. Jamie is a partner in Bailey Cavalieri, LLC, a Columbus, Ohio-based law firm, where he practices corporate law with a concentration on commercial lending, corporate transactions and unclaimed property law.

June Newsletter

Forty two members and guests were in attendance for Jay W. Simson’s talk on the Front Royal executions. Thank you Jay.

Jay W. Simson

May Newsletter

When:   May 11, 2011

Where: Ohio Health Medical Campus, 300 Polaris Parkway, Westerville Ohio 43082

Time:  7pm

Speaker: Jay W. Simson

Topic: Custer and the Front Royal Executions of 1864 

On September 23, 1864, George Armstrong Custer participated in a skirmish with members of Lt. Col. John S. Mosby’s 43rd Virginia Battalion of Partizan Rangers in which six of the Rangers were captured and executed. Mosby accussed Custer of being in command of the Union troops that day and personally ordering the executions. As a reprisal in November 1864, Mosby selected seven Union POWs for execution. Two escaped; two were shot,wounded and escaped; and three were hanged. Our May speaker, Jay W. Simson, contends that Mosby was not in command, did not order any executions, and in all probability was not present when the executions occured. In his program, Simson will reveal who was in command, who likely issued the orders for the execution, and why.

   Jay W. Simson, is a resident of Van Wert, Ohio, and has been a jounalist for thirty years. He was educated at the State University of New York at Morrisville. He and his wife, Lynn have four children and three grandchildren. He has been a member of the Western Ohio Civil War Roundtable in Celina for the past fifteen years.

   Simson has authored three books on the Civil War: Naval Strategies of the Civil War, Crisis of Command in the Army of the Potomac, and Custer and the Front Royal Executions of 1864. He is also in the process of publishing a fourth book, tentatively titled Making War and Peace: Gordon and Chamberlain in the American Civil War. A review of the custer book is available at:  http://www.civilwarnews.com/reviews/2010br/oct/custer-simson-b101019.html

May Newsletter

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When:    April 13, 2011

Where:  Ohio Health Medical Campus, 300 Polaris Parkway, Westerville Ohio 43082

Time:   7pm

Speaker: Scott Mingus

Topic: Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign

 Mr. Mingus, Sr. is a scientist and executive in the paper and printing industry, and holds patents in self-adhesive postage stamps and bar code labels. He was part of the research team that developed the first commercially successful self-adhesive postage stamps for the U.S. He has six Civil War books currently listed on amazon.com. Coming in April 2011 is Civil War Voices from York County, Pa.: Remembering the Rebellion and the Gettysburg Campaign; an official 150th Civil War Anniversary book for that county. He also is writing Gettysburg’s Controversial Old Confederate General: Governor William “Extra Billy” Smith of Virginia, which will be published by Savas Beatie late in 2011. Mingus has written several articles for The Gettysburg Magazine. He maintains a popular blog on the Civil War history of York County, Pa., for the York Daily Record www.yorkblog.com/cannonball. He also is a contributor to the popular Gettysburg Daily website: http://www.gettysburgdaily.com/?p=5610.

He also is a sanctioned Civil War tour guide for the York County Heritage Trust. He also has written six scenario books on wargaming. Scott and his wife Debi publish CHARGE!, the leading international magazine for Civil War miniature wargaming.
A native of southeastern Ohio, he graduated from Miami University after majoring in Paper Science & Engineering. Mingus spent 23 years as a scientist for office products company Avery Dennison in the Cleveland area before joining Glatfelter, a global manufacturer of specialty papers, in 2001. He and his family reside near York, Pennsylvania.

Mr. Mingus will present a PowerPoint slide presentation on one of Robert E. Lee’s best (and most controversial) brigades in the Army of Northern Virginia – the Louisiana Tigers. They played a key role in the Gettysburg Campaign. Their storming and seizure of a vital fort in the Winchester defenses forced Union commander Robert Milroy to abandon the town, opening the way north to the Potomac River for Lee’s forces. The Tigers were perhaps the single unit most feared by the Northern press, and some of their exploits will be recounted, followed by a discussion of their ill-fated attack on Cemetery Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg.

April War Correspondent

A hearty thank you to Stuart Dempsey and his lovely wife as they entertained and educated the Central Ohio Civil War Roundtable with the story of Orland Smith and his brigade’s defense of Cemetary Hill during the battle of Gettysburg.  

Stuart;  Myself and 46 members and guests salute you.