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Claymont, DE 19703

TEL: 302-798-2521

Non-Members: Dinner $22.00 meeting $3.00

 IN MEMORIAM: BOB POTTER
 The Civil War Round Table lost a long-time active member on August 29th when Bob Potter passed away after a courageous fight against cancer. Bob, who held a masters degree in history from the University of Delaware, was a social studies teacher at Padua Academy. Bob served as a director of the Round Table since 1995. He was  President of the Round Table in 2006-07. Bob served as our Vice President for Education from 2007 until his death.  He initiated the Round Table’s participation in the Delaware History Day contest in 1998. He was also past President for 2006-07.
 Bob had an encyclopedic knowledge of the battles and leaders of the Late Unpleasantness. He supported our programs and was a loyal and good comrade.  He will be missed.

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 Chris Makowski, November Speaker
Chris Mackowski is Associate Professor of Journalism at St. Bonaventure University. He has taught at St. Bonaventure since 2000.  Chancellorsville: Crossroads of Fire is his latest book, third in a series commissioned by the National park Service and published by Thomas Publications.  His earlier books were The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson and the Dark Close Wood: The Wilderness, Ellwood and the Battle that Redefined Both.
 Mackowksi has worked for the past seven years Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, where he gives tours and interpretive programs. He has also written extensively about the war for Civil War Times, America’s Civil War, and Blue & Gray magazine.
Prof. Mackowski will be speaking on the last days of Stonewall Jackson.

 Bryan M. Jordan, December Speaker
Brian M.Jordan is a third-year student in the History Ph.D. program at Yale University. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in History from Gettysburg College in 2009.
 Brian is a cultural historian of the American Civil War who focuses on questions of trauma and historical memory. His dissertation When Billy Came Marching Home: A History of Union Veterans  explores the cultural marginalization of Union veterans after the Civil War and the efforts of survivors to come to terms with the meaning of their participation in the conflict. Jordan argues that the American public was unable and unwilling to deal with unprecedented physical and emotional suffering that northern veterans faced post-1865. Jordan believes that the real stories of Union veterans were discounted by civilians in a conspiracy of silence because the reality of the lives of returning veterans did not match the romantic public relations image of those who served in the Union Army.
 Mr. Jordan’s recent publications include: Living Monuments: Union Veteran Amputees and the Embodied Memory of the Civil War , Civil War History vol 57, no. 2 (June 2011); We Stand on the Same Battlefield: The Gettysburg Centenary and the Shadow of Race, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography vol. 135, no. 4 (October 2011); and  Captive Memories, The Civil War Monitor (September 2011). Mr. Jordan will be speaking to the Round Table on the veterans of the Civil War after the end of the war.

 William Connery December Speaker
 William Connery was raised in East Baltimore in the shadow of the Patterson Park pagoda where 10,000 Soldiers waited to oppose the British invasion of Baltimore in September, 1814. He attended Mary Washington University and has been a career journalist, editor and writer since 1989.  Mr. Connery has written more than 60 articles on civil war topics for news papers such as the Washington Times and the Civil War Courier. The History Press has released his book, Civil War Northern Virginia, 1861.  Mr. Connery received the Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal for outstanding contributions in furthering the study and preservation of Confederate history through extensive research, writing and public speaking in June, 2012.
 He will be speaking on the Civil War in Northern Virginia in 1861.

 DELAWARE’S GENERALS:
 “TARDY GEORGE” SYKES
[Major General “Tardy George”  Sykes was the only Delaware officer to command a Union Army Corps during the War. He commanded the Army of the Potomac’s brigade of Regulars in 1861 at the First Battle of Manassas.  Sykes’ command saved Gen. McDowell’s army from destruction. Gen. Sykes became division commander, 2nd Division Fifth Corps in May, 1862.]
The right flank of the Union Fifth Corps, forming the northern anchor of Gen. McClellan’s lines before Richmond, hung in the air near the village of Mechanicsville at a place called Beaver Dam Creek.  Gen. Porter took the precaution of ordering his corps to entrench, since the Army of the Potomac was halted until Gen. Irvin McDowell’s First Corps joined Porter’s Fifth Corps via an overland march from Fredericksburg.  The Confederate high command obtained intelligence showing Porter’s flank could be turned and McClellan’s base at White House Landing on the York River could be threatened.   Sykes’ Regulars and Brig. Gen. George P. Morell’s Division of the

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Fifth Corps carried out a smart little sortie on May 27,  against Confederate forces at Hanover Court House.  Their supreme test was to come a month later when Gen. Robert E. Lee directed Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill, D. H. Hill  and James Longstreet to throw their three divisions at Porter’s lines on the east side of Beaver Dam Creek.  Porter kept Sykes’ Regulars as his corps reserve.  On June 26,  Brig. Gen. George W. McCall’s Division of Porter’s Corps stood off the late day Confederate assault on its entrenched lines.  During the night of  June 26-27, however, McCall’s Division fell back to Old Cold Harbor to previously prepared positions, due to rumors that a large numbers of Confederates were lurking in the woods northeast of Beaver Dam Creek.  The new position was crescent-shaped, one flank resting on a stream known as Elder’s Swamp while the right flank hung in the air near Old Cold Harbor. George Sykes’ Division held the key to the position overlooking Boatswain’s Swamp on a sandy ridge which dominated the eastern end of the battlefield.  Late on the afternoon of  June 28, Maj.Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s Division and Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s Division commenced a reckless frontal assault against Sykes’ Division on the Union right.  Sykes’ Regulars held firm into the evening, retiring from the field only after the Union left had been broken and his rear had been threatened by a Confederate advance from the west.
     That evening, the Fifth Corps crossed the Chickahominy and united with the rest of Gen. McClellan’s Army, giving up the Richmond & York River R.R. supply line to the enemy. McClellan sent the Fifth Corps off to the southeast to hold an advanced position near the James River at Glendale cross-roads.  Sykes’ Division was not engaged when Confederates under Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill tried to drive the Fifth Corps units from this key crossroads.  Sykes’ Division was left out of the climax of the Seven Days Battle at Malvern Hill on July 1, his brigades being posted in blocking positions to prevent the Union position from being turned.
     In August, the Fifth Corps moved by steamer to Aquia Creek and made an overland march to join Gen. John Pope’s Army of Virginia near Manassas.  Pope ordered  Porter to attack the southern or right flank of Stonewall Jackson’s Confederates posted along an unfinished railroad about a mile and a half west of the 1861 battlefield.  Pope’s army spent all day on August 29 trying to take the position.  However, Pope did not know that Gen. James Longstreet’s divisions had come to Jackson’s aid and now occupied positions immediately to the southeast of the south end of Jackson’s lines, concealed in heavy woodlands.  Porter refused to attack in support of the Army of Virginia, for which he was later court-martialed and cashiered.  Porter’s disobedience, however, worked to the Union army’s advantage on the next day when Longstreet’s divisions attacked the Union left flank and rolled it up.   Porter’s fresh troops formed a defensive crescent on Henry House Hill near the site of Stonewall Jackson’s position in the previous summer.  In the twilight, George Sykes’ Regulars calmly loaded and fired volleys into Gen. John B. Hood’s onrushing Division. The Regulars stopped the Confederate advance, permitting Pope’s army to withdraw to Centreville.
     The Fifth Corps sat out the Battle of Antietam on September 17 as the Army’s reserve.  During the lull between Antietam and Fredericksburg, George Sykes became a Major General of Volunteers.  On December 13 the Fifth Corps was part of the Center Grand Division of Burnsides’ Army under Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker.  Sykes’ Division was in reserve supporting the Union Second Corps, which made seven futile frontal assaults on the Confederates posted on Marye’s Heights.  After dark, Sykes’ Division took over the Second Corps line and held off threatened counterattacks on 14 December permitting the Union Army to withdraw.
     Sykes’ Division was very lightly engaged during the Chancellorsville campaign from April 30 through May 5, 1863.  The Fifth Corps was the Union spearhead and was east of the serious fighting on May 3-4, 1863. George Sykes became Commanding General Fifth Corps on June 28 when Maj. Gen. George G. Meade became commanding general of the Army of the Potomac.  Sykes’ finest hour was about to take place.

Grape & Canister November 2012            Sesquicentennial Edition No. 7                        Page Four

 PHOTO GALLERY

How many of these Union General Officers can you identify?

                                  Grape & Canister 
 A Publication of the Civil War Round
 Table of Wilmington, Delaware, Inc.
 Founded 1955
President:                                            Frank Giamboy
Vice President Education:            TBA
Vice President Preservation:     George Ferguson
Vice President Finance& Treas:  Greg Vavroch
Secretary:                                             Deborah Butzbach
Board Members:
Lisa Cristofich,                              TBA
Vincent Gasbarro, Jr.                 James Pratzner
John LaRosch                                  Frank Giamboy
George Ferguson                           Greg Vavroch
Richard Powers                            Tom Carver
Deborah Butzbach                       Tom Reed
Program Chair:                             Lisa Cristofich
Field Trip Chair:                          Vincent Gasbarro, Jr.
Editor:                                             Tom Reed
©2012 Civil War Round Table of Wilmington, Delaware, Inc. 71 W. Fifth St. New Castle, DE  19720

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