Camden County College, Old Baldy Civil War Round Table Fall Lecture Series
Beyond Gettysburg: The Fiery Trial Continues
Despite the Union victory in the Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War dragged on for nearly two more years. This series of lectures will focus on what came after Gettysburg, how the war-weary nation perceived the meaning of that battle, and the means by which President Lincoln sought to bring an end to the War.
The Economics of War: How Financial Decisions North & South Influenced the War’s Outcome
Tuesday, September 23, 2014, 7:00 pm
An informative presentation by Matthew Borowick, Executive Director of the Civil War Library & Research Center in Woodbridge, NJ, and columnist for Civil War News. It is customarily believed that wars are won and lost by the actions of generals and armies. However, those armies cannot fight unless they are properly trained, equipped and fed, and that takes the effective and efficient management of resources. How the North and the South managed their resources provides a fascinating look into why one side succeeded—and the other side failed.
Andersonville Prison: An American Tragedy
Tuesday, September 30, 2014, 7:00 pm
Presenting is Joseph F. Wilson, a member of the General Meade Society, the Civil War Trust, and the Old Baldy CWRT. Come hear the tragic story of Andersonville Prison, where more than 45,000 Union soldiers were confined between February 1864 and April 1865. In those fourteen months 13,000 soldiers perished from disease, starvation and exposure. Joe’s Great-Great-Grandfather, Corporal George Garman, 36th Pa. Volunteers, survived the horrors of Andersonville.
Gettysburg: History and Hype
Tuesday, October 7, 2014, 7:00 pm
A very interesting take by Dr. Gregory J. W. Urwin, Temple University Professor of History, and President of the Society for Military History, as to how Americans have come to perceive war and victory. Mistakenly, we understand human conflict simply as a succession of clashes with victory gained by the side that wins the most or biggest ones. This lecture compares Gettysburg with other truly decisive Union victories, and considers our distorted view of what the Civil War was really like—then, and still today.
Grant Comes East – 1864
Tuesday, October 14, 2014, 7:00 pm
Jay Jorgenson, author, history professor, attorney and municipal court judge, takes us from the two major victories in the summer of 1863—Gettysburg in the east and Vicksburg in the west—into the pivotal year of 1864. Despite these key victories, President Lincoln found it increasingly difficult to bring the war to a successful conclusion, and brought Ulysses S. Grant east to take command of all Union forces. Grant implemented a plan to keep intense pressure on all of the Confederate armies in the South, with the clear intention of guiding the Union war effort to a successful outcome.
John Bachelder’s Gettysburg: His Influence Then and Now
Tuesday, October 28, 2014, 7:00 pm
Steven J. Wright has served as a Park Ranger at Gettysburg, Curator for the Civil War Library & Museum of Philadelphia, and as Special Collections Librarian for the Free Library of Philadelphia. The question that is often asked is why the battle of Gettysburg has received—and continues to receive—the attention it does? Steve offers that it may be largely due to the role that John Bachelder played in the preservation of the battlefield and ultimately the impact that he had on how the battlefield looks today. Much of the way we have come to see the battlefield, and the way that we still study and even talk about the battle, was influenced by Bachelder, as it was he who coined the phrase “copse of trees”, and created the popular term “High Watermark of the Confederacy”. The fields we walk today, the troop movements we study, and the monuments placed upon those hallowed grounds, are not by mere happenstance, but rather a carefully and precisely conceived plan to tell the story of this grandest of struggles to future generations.