Category: Biographies

Biographical studies or sketches of Civil War-related figures.

Elihu Washburne – The Indispensable Civil War Congressman

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024-2025, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the November 2024 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

The new Republican party had just elected its first president, Abraham Lincoln from Illinois. Soon thereafter, Honest Abe boarded a train and headed for the capital, where he would be inaugurated. Excited northern crowds greeted him at every stop. But in D.C., among those enthusiastically waiting for his incognito arrival was a longtime and huge supporter from Galena, Illinois, Congressman Elihu Washburne. Washburne had not only given his unwavering support to Lincoln during his presidential bid, but had ardently supported him in nearly all of his political campaigns, including Lincoln’s 1854 and 1868 unsuccessful runs for the U.S. Senate. In the mid-1850’s, Washburne helped found the new anti-slavery Republican Party. But for now, so connected with Lincoln was Washburne that he rented a private home for Lincoln a few blocks from the White House. However, it was deemed a better political choice for a newly elected president to stay in the more public Willard Hotel.

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A Civil War Odyssey in Brecksville, Ohio: The Search for William Stacy

By John Syroney
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in February 2024.

It has often been said that stories are the fabric of humanity as they have the capacity to transport us to different places. I cannot think of a more unique story than the one of William Stacy. Having been a resident of Brecksville, Ohio for 25 years, I know the long and rich history that Brecksville has with the Civil War. I would often walk through the Brecksville Cemetery and see the graves of numerous Civil War soldiers. Memorial Day in Brecksville has a long history of honoring those old soldiers and remembering the sacrifices of those who gave the “last full measure” to their country.

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General Henry J. Hunt, Union Chief of Artillery

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2023-2024, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the May 2024 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

For most of the Civil War the Union had an artillery advantage over the South for numerous reasons. Paramount among those many reasons, and especially for the Union Army of the Potomac, was the Chief of Artillery, General Henry J. Hunt. He made a big difference in organizational philosophy for the entirety of the North’s artillery arm, but most decisively in his battlefield exploits for the Army of the Potomac, especially at the Battles of Malvern Hill, Antietam, and Gettysburg and also the siege of Petersburg. None other than the incomparable Mr. Ed Bearss, Historian Emeritus, U.S. National Park Service, in his book Fields of Honor called General Henry J. Hunt “one of the Civil War’s premier artillerists.”

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The Most Osseous War in U.S. History

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2023, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in May 2023.

The movie Rocky III includes the song “Eye of the Tiger,” which was written by Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik and was performed in the soundtrack by the band Survivor. The lyrics of this song focus on the necessity for dedication, tenacity, and effort in order to achieve an ardently sought goal. A line from “Eye of the Tiger” describes a change that sometimes occurs when a person is pursuing a strongly desired ambition. This line is “So many times it happens too fast, you trade your passion for glory.” This line conveys the transformation that people sometimes undergo in which the passion that drew them into the pursuit of a goal becomes a quest for fame. A person may initially desire to achieve a worthwhile objective for pure and honorable reasons, that is, to accomplish something simply because it is worth accomplishing and simply for the sake of accomplishing it. But the quest later becomes tarnished by a shift in the primary goal from the accomplishment, itself, to the less noble things that come with the accomplishment, such as public acclaim and financial riches. In this way, the person trades the passion of focusing on a worthwhile achievement and exchanges that passion for a pursuit of fame and fortune or some other less noble goals. The worthwhile goal may still be achieved even when the motives are less honorable, but the quest and the person making it become less admirable.

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A Bit of Robert E. Lee in That State Up North

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2022-2023, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger as two parts in December 2022 and January 2023.

On display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio are a number of outfits that were worn by iconic figures of rock and roll. Among these are the yellow military-style outfit that John Lennon wore on the album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, matching frilly-bottomed shapely dresses worn by the Supremes, a sleeveless jumpsuit with a plunging neckline that was worn on tour by Mick Jagger, Elvis Presley’s suit from his 1968 television special, a loose-fitting and suitably neon-colored outfit worn by Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jackson’s Thriller jacket, a bright red outfit with broad pointed shoulders and a flashy blue and white lightning bolt that was worn by David Bowie, and, more recently, some outfits that were worn by Beyonce. It is a mark of prestige that Cleveland is the home of clothing that was worn by so many iconic figures of rock and roll. But a city in Michigan (or “that state up north” as it is known to Ohioans) is the location of an article of clothing that is the Civil War equivalent of the rock and roll outfits in Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is because this article of clothing once belonged to the person who is unquestionably the most prominent military figure of the Confederacy.

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The Sound and the Fury: William Faulkner’s Great-Grandfather

By Brian D. Kowell
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2021, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in December 2021.

“I want to be a writer like my great-granddaddy.”

–William Faulkner

William Clark Falkner was a lawyer, farmer, businessman, politician, soldier, poet, and great-grandfather to one of the greatest writers in American literary history. Born September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, the writer William Faulkner never knew his great-grandfather. The young Faulkner spent his boyhood listening to stories told by his elders about the Civil War, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Falkner family. Faulkner’s grandfather also told him about the exploits of William’s great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner – or as the family referred to him – the “Old Colonel.”

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