When: September 9th
Where: La Navona, 154 North Hamilton Road. Gahanna Ohio 43230
AND on Zoom
Time: 7pm
Speaker: Phillip S. Greenwalt
Topic: The Battle of Olustee
The Battle of Olustee, the largest engagement fought in Florida, had reverberations that rippled through both the North and South. For the Union, the failure to subdue the entirety of East Florida, sever the rail link across the Suwannee River, and interrupt the flow of material and aid to Southern armies in other theaters was a direct cause of their defeat. Yet, the North retained a foothold in Florida, to coincide with permanent occupations of Fernandina and St. Augustine and with the United State Navy blockading the coastline and patrolling the vital St. John’s River.
For the Southerners, the failure to follow-up the victory and crush General Truman Seymour’s forces allowed for a continued Union army presence in the state. The lack of railroad infrastructure kept more Confederate foot-soldiers from being available. Georgians under General Alfred Colquitt marched over 40 miles in a 24-hour period just to reach Florida just to be available for the contest. Issues with the general officer corps also plagued the rebels.
With the presence of African-American soldiers, atrocities committed and blamed also ensued which underscored the racial tensions that the war had provoked by 1864.
These elements in addition to the failure of both sides, before, during, and after the Battle of Olustee make this engagement a “forgotten battle” that had implications that reached farther than the swamps, wetlands, and pine barrens of Florida. Yet, out of the 5,500 soldiers brought into the contest, 203 were killed, 1,152 wounded, and 506 declared missing for a total of 1,861 or 34% of those engaged. Southern forces suffered 93 killed, 847 wounded, and six missing for a total of 946 men, 19% of their forces. Which underscores the ferocity of the engagement.
To put it more bluntly, one only has to read the last four words of the telegram that General Seymour sent to General Quincy Gillmore following the battle;
Olustee was “a devilish hard rub.”
The discussion will put the Battle of Olustee in the context for what it meant in Confederate Florida and for the larger war effort itself; for Northern ambitions and Southern defiance.
Phillip S. Greenwalt is co-founder of Emerging Revolutionary War and a full-time contributor to Emerging Civil War. He is the author or co-author of five books on the American Revolution and the American Civil War. Phillip graduated with a degree in
history from Wheeling Jesuit University and earned a graduate degree in American history from George Mason University. He is currently a Supervisory Park Ranger in Interpretation and Visitor Services at Everglades National Park. Prior to his current position Phillip spent seven years as historian at George Washington Birthplace National Monument and Thomas Stone National Historic Site. He has also served in work details to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park, Morristown National Historical Park, and De Soto National Memorial throughout his National Park Service career.
September Presidents Message
My Fellow Roundtable Members: I hope everyone is healthy and doing well. Our next meeting is set for La Navona on Wednesday, September 9 at 7 pm, with all the required social distancing requirements. Our presenter will be Phillip Greenwalt, and his presentation will be on the Battle of Olustee, Florida’s largest Civil War battle. Phillip is a Floridian, so he will not be making the trip to Columbus for the meeting, but rather will present remotely. We will have an in-person meeting at La Navona for those of you who chose to attend (I will be there), but we will be viewing Phillip’s presentation on the big screen there.
Phillip will inform us about this “forgotten” battle, which Union commander Truman Seymour described as “a devilish hard rub.” For more information on Mr. Greenwalt’s presentation, please go to our website at Centralohiocwrt.wordpress.com.
If you come to La Navona, you are going to have to follow the safety protocols:
**You will be required to wear a mask in the building. I know that no one likes this rule, but I have to insist upon strict compliance with the rule in order to make all our members feel safe. If you do not bring a mask, you will be asked to leave.
**We will not shake hands or otherwise make physical contact with each other.
**We will sit at least six feet apart from other members (unless you are family).
If you do not feel you can comply with these rules, I ask you to please stay home and (hopefully) log onto the meeting from your home computer. I am not trying to make any political statements; I am simply respecting our host venue, who could be shut down if we do not follow these rules. La Navona allows us to use their facility without charging the Roundtable a dime; I cannot let anyone from our Roundtable endanger La Navona’s ability to continue doing business.
You can also attend the meeting virtually by the Zoom link set forth below. Ed Chadwick and Tim Maurice have continued to work hard on this project, and we ran a “dry run” of the meeting with Mr. Greenwalt earlier this week that worked well. We will continue to try to improve the experience each and every month until we get it down pat. Again, I ask for your patience and support. There are a lot of moving pieces to the project!!
Join Zoom Meeting
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Passcode: 549416
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One last word on Zoom meeting protocols. Please put yourself on Mute until we go to the Q&A session at the end. Please pay attention to any Chat messages sent; we are usually trying to inform one or more of the Zoom participants that they have not muted themselves. Finally, if you are not dressed appropriately for a meeting, please disable the video on the Zoom screen so you are not showing the rest of the meeting participants that you are not dressed appropriately. If you have any questions about these protocols, PLEASE contact me.
Our Treasurer’s Report from Dave Delisio:
Treasurer’s Report for July 2020
Beginning checking account balance 8/1/2020 = $2086.10
August receipts = $208.00 ($158.00 from meeting book raffle/match; $50.00 from member donation for computer)
August expenses = $330.00 ($100.00 to Mike Peters for speaker related expenses, $180.00 to Matt Borders for speaker fee, $50.00 to Ed Chadwick for computer accessory reimbursement)
Ending checking account balance 8/31/2020 = $1964.10
Thank you to all our members who have contributed to acquiring the equipment to run a virtual meeting. We had great success last month, and we intend to continue to improve.
I have attached Tom Ayre’s report on the meeting, and three pictures from La Navona taken by Janet Maurice during the meeting. I bought four extra copies of Matt Border’s book, Faces of Union Soldiers at Antietam, which Matt graciously signed. Please let me know if anyone wants a copy for $20.
Faces of Union Soldiers at Antietam
Matt Borders
August 12, 2020
Matt Borders, a park ranger at Monocacy battlefield in Maryland, teamed up with Joseph Stahl to publish a volume of the title above featuring 36 Union Army soldiers who fought at Antietam on September 17, 1862.
The 36 infantrymen — officers and enlisted men — were chosen because they had formal photographs taken in uniform in the format of the popular greeting card of the day — Carte de visite. The CdV process was patented in Paris in 1854 by photographer Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi.
Borders told the Roundtable that Union soldiers were chosen because very few Confederates had such photos taken. The cards were relatively expensive for the times. Stahl acquired all of the images that are featured in the book. Much of Borders’s discussion at the meeting dealt with the uniforms, insignia and other features of the attire of the soldiers.
Antietam is known as the single bloodiest day in American military history, producing almost 23,000 casualties on both sides, during 12 hours of fighting.
At his presentation before the Roundtable, Borders featured five soldiers — Elisah Burbank, a major in 12th Massachusetts regiment; Philip Sellers, a private in the 107th Pennsylvania; Jabez Miller, a first lieutenant in the 26th New York; Peter Kelchner, a sergeant in the 28th New York who was later promoted to captain of the 2nd NY Mounted Rifles; and, William Keiner, a sergeant in the 3rd Maryland.
“They were common soldiers just trying to do their duty,” Borders says of the entire group in his book.
The action at Antietam raged from around 6 a.m. until late in the day, after 5 p.m. It took place in six distinct locations, well known to Civil War buffs — cornfield, East woods, West woods, sunken road, lower bridge and Burnside bridge. Borders’s book illustrates the order of battle with maps of each of these phases.
Early morning action took place in a wedge of ground formed by two roads, the Hagerstown Pike to the west and Smoketown Road to the east, which intersected as they traveled south in a sharp-angled “V” just north of the famed Dunker Church. This was an horrific killing field that immortalized the
small cornfield and the two woods. Southern troops from mainly Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina were commanded by Daniel Harvey Hill.
In the earliest action, at dawn, Major General James Ricketts’s division of I Corps moved south toward the church. Its advance south was shortly augmented by the XII Corps. The 12th Massachusetts was in the first wave at the southern edge of the corn field. The 12th paid heavily for its leading wave. Of its strength of 325 men, 49 were killed, 165 wounded and 10 missing. Its commander Major Burbank suffered a serious wound to the foot. He was evacuated to a hospital in Frederick and was later placed in a private home with two other officers. He died in this home on November 30.
In this same fierce action the 107th Pennsylvania encountered three Confederate brigades. James MacThompson, a regimental captain, wrote in his official report, “…in 15 minutes we compelled them to fall back.” But the tide would turn as the rebels were re-enforced. Over some 45 minutes the Confederates drove the 107th back through the cornfield. “We held at bay a force of the enemy numerically five times our superior for considerably more than an hour, and at one time driving them,” MacThompson wrote.
In the 107th was Private Philip Sellers, who survived Antietam but was wounded in the thigh almost exactly a year later at Reams Station in Virginia. This occurred after he was captured at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, exchanged and re-enlisted for three years. He was discharged as disabled from his second wound on June 6, 1865. After the war Sellers moved to Kansas, where he died in 1909.
Of the other three soldiers, Miller, Kelchner and Keiner, the written record is fairly sketchy. Miller, a blacksmith before the war, served his two-year enlistment but did not re-enlist after discharge in May 1863. Kelchner was wounded seriously in the leg at Antietam but recovered and, as mentioned above, was promoted to officer of a mounted unit. Keiner was wounded in the left knee at Poplar Grove Church in September 1864, during the siege of Petersburg. He was mustered out of service April 2, 1865, at City Point, Virginia, in the final days of the war.
Service ranger at Antietam National Battlefield, as well as a historian and battlefield surveyor for the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program. He is also a Certified Battlefield Guide at Antietam and Harpers Ferry. In 2019, Matthew was honored to be the recipient of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation’s prestigious Dr. Joseph Harsh Award for his research topic: The Loudoun Valley Campaign of 1862: McClellan’s Final Advance.
Battlefield in Frederick, Maryland and along with fellow guide, Joe Stahl, recently published his first book, Faces of Union Soldiers at Antietam. This work looks into 36 individual soldiers that fought at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, America’s Bloodiest Day. These images are previously unpublished and are of the men in the ranks, not the generals that commanded them. Join us as we discuss a selection of these soldiers, who they were, what they did on the field, and what we can glean from their images.
The USS Isaac P. Smith was ambushed by Confederate shore batteries and captured on the Stono River near Charleston on January 30, 1863. John Wyer Dicks (Executive Officer) and Frederic Calvin Hills (Paymaster) were officers on the Smith, meeting each other as shipmates, spending time as prisoners of war together, and immediately after the Civil War becoming related when Frederic married John’s daughter Marianne. The Ambush of the Isaac P. Smith, Family Ties and the Battle on the Stono, January 30, 1863 tells the history of the Smith leading up to its capture as well as provides an account of the crew’s captivity, the lives of Dicks and Hills after the war, and some brief biographies of other combatants, North and South. Battle reports and eyewitness accounts were used to describe the battle. This book is published through Lulu.com and is available there as well as Amazon.com and 
and a former Marine. He is a lifelong history enthusiast and has spent countless hours reading, researching and exploring battlefields – from the French and Indian War to Vietnam. Gary owns Dyson Genealogy and Historical Research and is the author of Ambush of the Isaac P. Smith and A Civil War Correspondent in New Orleans, the Journals and Reports of Albert Gaius Hills of the Boston Journal as well as two Maryland church histories. A book about Confederate Row at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, Maryland is in the works. He has a BS in Natural Resources from Oregon State University. Gary lives in Mount Airy, MD with his wife Emily and they are so close to being “empty-nesters.”
Salisbury University, and his Doctorate in History Education from George Mason University, where he studied under noted Civil War historian Dr. Joseph L. Harsh.