Upcoming CCWRT Program
Wednesday, November 12, 2025 at 6:00 p.m.

November 2025 Roundtable Meeting: “United States Colored Troops (USCT)”

The November 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable will take place on November 12, 2025 beginning at 6:00 p.m. This will be an in-person meeting. The speaker will be Edward Gantt, and the title of Ed’s presentation is “United States Colored Troops (USCT).”

The Union did not allow Black enlistments early in the Civil War. However, Black enlistments were eventually permitted beginning in the middle of the war, and Black men of the United States Colored Troops were critical for the eventual Union victory. Over 180,000 African Americans enlisted, and there were 175 USCT regiments, which comprised about 10% of the Union Army. The men in the USCT regiments fought with courage and distinction, and their performance refuted the prevailing notion about their fighting ability. President Abraham Lincoln asserted that “without the military help of the black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.” Moreover, the service of the men in the USCT laid the groundwork for enhanced social equality after the war. Because Black men had shown that they were willing to fight and sacrifice for the nation, this provided the impetus for civil rights advancement and for greater equality for all Black Americans, although the struggle for civil rights continued for many years.

Captain Edward Gantt, Retired U.S. Navy Flight Officer, began an association with the 23rd Infantry Regiment, USCT, reenactors and living historians in 2014. He is a member of the 54th Massachusetts Civil War reenactors in the Washington, D.C. area. His military service includes serving in combat for 12 months in South Vietnam as a helicopter door gunner and crew chief. He then graduated from Howard University, after which he again joined the armed forces, attended the Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School, and was commissioned a Naval Flight Officer in 1978. He subsequently served in several F-14 Tomcat squadrons and had a number of overseas assignments while flying over 2,000 hours, including from aircraft carriers. After 30 years of active service, he retired in 2003 and began a career as a public school teacher.

The November 2025 meeting will be held at the Holiday Inn Independence (6001 Rockside Road, Independence, Ohio 44131). Reservations should be made by sending an email to the Roundtable’s reservation email account (ccwrtreserve@gmail.com). Reservations must be made no later than eight days before the meeting (i.e., no later than November 4, 2025). When making a reservation, please include your name and the number and names of any guests. Please also indicate the meal choice for you (and any guests). The three meal options are chicken cordon bleu, bourbon salmon, and grilled eggplant bruschetta. If a reservation needs to be canceled, it must be canceled no later than November 11, 2025. Dinner will be provided to anyone who has a reservation. The cost of dinner is $35 per person. It is not necessary to purchase dinner in order to attend the meeting, but reservations are requested from everyone in order to have sufficient chairs set up in the meeting room. Those who plan to attend the meeting without purchasing dinner should indicate “no dinner” when they make a reservation. Other details can be found on the Reservations web page by clicking on this link.

Meeting Summary: October 2025 – “Hell by the Acre”

The October 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable featured an outstanding and very informative presentation by Dan Masters. Dan’s presentation focused on the Battle of Stones River and was based on his recent book Hell by the Acre, which is a narrative history of the Stones River Campaign in 1862-1863 in the Western Theater. Dan told the meeting attendees that the importance of the Battle of Stones River has been greatly underappreciated. He explained that that battle was one of the largest and bloodiest of the Western Theater, with a total of about 80,000 troops engaged and about 25,000 casualties or nearly one-third of the total troops.

Dan further noted that the Battle of Stones River occurred at one of the darkest times in the war for the Union. Not long before this battle, the Union suffered two major defeats, one at Fredericksburg and one at Chickasaw Bayou. Hence, the other two major campaigns of the war at that time, that is, the Vicksburg Campaign and the campaign against the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater, were both going badly for the Union. Because of this, there was serious disillusionment in the North toward the war. Moreover, there was concern in Abraham Lincoln’s administration that victories by the Confederacy would prompt foreign countries, particularly England, to enter the war on the side of the South. In addition, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation at the time of the Battle of Stones River, and another Confederate victory in that battle would make that proclamation hollow.

Dan emphasized that he focused in his book not so much on the military leaders, but on the lower ranking officers and the soldiers, because it was these two groups who were at the front lines of the battle. To exemplify this, Dan related two anecdotes from the battle. In one astonishing and incongruous anecdote, a Confederate staff officer was sent to deliver a message to the commander of a regiment, and these two officers became so enraged with each other that they came to blows while the battle was going on around them. The other anecdote involved a Union soldier in line of battle who became aware of a bullet that flew past him. When he turned to see where the bullet went, he saw that it had struck a sergeant in the forehead, and the soldier watched the gruesome sight of this collapsed sergeant’s body twitching on the ground and bleeding from the nostrils. Incredibly, the soldier wrote about this in a letter to his 14-year-old sister. Dan’s masterful use of anecdotes like these compellingly articulated the grim and sobering realities of the Civil War much more effectively than discussions of tactics and strategy.

Although the Battle of Stones River was a tactically inconclusive Union victory, Dan posed the question of what the effect would have been of a Confederate victory in this battle, coming as it would after serious Union defeats at Fredericksburg and Chickasaw Bayou and also coming at a time of discontent toward the war in the North, concern about intervention by England, and the unfavorable attitude among Northerners toward Lincoln’s shifting of the war’s objective by his issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. This was a very effective way to demonstrate the underappreciated importance of this battle. Dan concluded his superb presentation by discussing preservation efforts at the Stones River battlefield.

The Roundtable is extremely grateful to Dan for his superb and engaging presentation. Dan gave a presentation to the Roundtable about a year and a half ago, and that presentation was excellent. He continued his sequence of great Roundtable visits at the October 2025 meeting with another terrific and engrossing presentation.

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Click on the book link above to purchase from Amazon. Part of the proceeds from any book purchased from Amazon through the CCWRT website is returned to the CCWRT to support its education and preservation programs.

October 2025 Charger Uploaded

The October 2025 issue of The Charger has been uploaded onto the Roundtable’s website. The October 2025 issue can be accessed by clicking on this link.

Latest History Brief (September 2025) Posted

Roundtable Historian Dan Ursu’s September 2025 history brief has been posted. Dan’s latest history brief is Ram Warfare on the Mississippi River in 1862, and it discusses naval warfare on the Mississippi River as it relates to riverboats that were modified to act as rams against enemy riverboats. Dan’s history brief can be accessed by clicking on this link.

Membership Roster and Contact Information

We have worked very hard to improve our membership database and contact information this year, but we know we probably have more work to do. Please be sure to keep us advised of changes in contact information by sending us the information at clecwrt@gmail.com. We monitor that email account on a regular basis, so this would be a big help in making sure we can keep you informed of group activities. If you want to see what has been posted on our Facebook page or Twitter account, you do not have to become a member of the Roundtable. Everyone is welcome to view our Facebook page and Twitter account. These can also be accessed by googling “Cleveland Civil War Roundtable” and either “Facebook” or “Twitter” and clicking on the appropriate link in the search results.