Join us at 7:15 PM on Thursday, October 10th 2024, in Camden County College’s William G. Rohrer Center, 1889 Marlton Pike East, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003. We will meet at The Kettle & Grill, 230 N Maple Ave, Marlton, NJ 08053 (Crispin Square Shopping Center) at 5:30 PM before the meeting for dinner and fellowship. The program will also be simulcast on Zoom for the benefit of those members and friends who are unable to attend; please email oldbaldycwrt [at] verizon [dot] net at least 24 hours prior to request Zoom access. This month’s topic is

Allen R. Thompson on “In the Shadow of the Round Tops: Longstreet’s Countermarch, Johnston’s Reconnaissance, and the Enduring Battles for the Memory of July 2, 1863”

James Longstreet’s countermarch and Samuel Johnston’s morning reconnaissance are two of the most enigmatic events of the Battle of Gettysburg. Both have been viewed as major factors in the Confederacy’s loss of the battle and, in turn, the war. Yet much of it lies shrouded in mystery.

Though the battle is one of the most well-documented events in history, the vast majority of our knowledge comes from the words of the veterans and civilians who experienced it. Without action photography, video, or audio recordings, our primary window into what happened is the memory of those who were there. The story of the Battle of Gettysburg is simply the compilation of the memories of those who fought it. But memory is anything but objective.

Recognizing the multitude of factors that affect human memory, In the Shadow of the Round Tops explores how the individual soldiers experienced, remembered, and wrote about the battle, and how those memories have created a cloud over James Longstreet’s enigmatic countermarch and Samuel Johnston’s infamous reconnaissance. Each soldier had a particular view of these historic events. Because many people saw part of the story, but no one saw all of it, each memory is a critical piece to the puzzle. By comparing the veterans’ memories and sifting through the factors that affected each memory, the picture of the countermarch, reconnaissance, and the entire battle, comes into sharper focus.

Join us at 7:15 PM on Thursday, November 14th, in Camden County College’s William G. Rohrer Center, 1889 Marlton Pike East, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003. We will meet at The Kettle & Grill, 230 N Maple Ave, Marlton, NJ 08053 (Crispin Square Shopping Center) at 5:30 PM before the meeting for dinner and fellowship. The program will also be simulcast on Zoom for the benefit of those members and friends who are unable to attend; please email oldbaldycwrt [at] verizon [dot] net at least 24 hours prior to request Zoom access. This month’s topic is

Chuck Veit on “Edward B. Hunt’s Sea Miner”

“Sea Miner” is not a talk for the faint of heart–-it is, quite literally, rocket science. Edward Hunt’s incredible weapon seems to belong to at least the Second World War (or perhaps much later). If you are tired of the “same old Civil War stories” of bludgeoning tactics and staggering losses from wounds and disease, Sea Miner will show you what the scientists were up to during the war. Don’t worry: there is no math in the presentation!

Sea Miner is the painstakingly reconstructed story of the U.S. Navy’s first sponsored torpedo development program. Begun in 1862, the project was beyond “top secret,” for the weapon it sought to create would overnight make the U.S. Navy supreme upon the oceans. This was critical, as global war against an alliance of the Confederacy, England and France was anticipated. The inventor, Major Edward B. Hunt of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, succeeded, but his mania for secrecy left no details of his activities–all plans, records and diagrams were destroyed at the conclusion of each stage of development.  In the absence of hard facts, historians have long considered Sea Miner to have been a failure; nothing could be further from the truth. This is a story from the Civil War that doesn’t seem to belong to that period at all; it is wholly unexpected. The advances made by Hunt would not be seen again for eighty years, and not replicated by the U.S. Navy until the mid-1950s.

In addition to researching and writing little-known naval history, Chuck Veit enjoys delivering presentations on a number of the episodes he’s discovered. He has spoken twice at the Maritime Heritage Conference in Norfolk, six times at the Naval War College in Newport, to the Naval Order of the United States in Jacksonville, at the Portsmouth Navy Yard’s 238th Anniversary Ball, and at the Mariners’ Museum Civil War Navy Conference in Newport News. Other venues include a large number of historical societies, Civil War Roundtables and schools in the Northeast and in Seattle. Chuck has also been interviewed on Civil War Talk Radio to discuss A Dog Before a Soldier as well as Sea Miner.

General Membership Meeting, Bi-annual Elections, and Social Night

Meeting of January 9, 2025, 7:15pm

James Pula on Union General Daniel Butterfield: A Civil War Biography

This book explores the complex legacy of Union General Daniel Butterfield, from his battlefield heroics and Medal of Honor to controversies and innovations that shaped the Civil War. James S. Pula unravels this enigmatic figure’s life in this meticulously researched and long-awaited biography.
Dan Butterfield played a pivotal role during the Civil War. He led troops in the field at the brigade, division, and corps level, wrote an 1862 Army field manual, was awarded a Medal of Honor, composed “Taps,” and served as the chief-of-staff for Joe Hooker in the Army of the Potomac. He introduced a custom that remains in the U.S. Army today: the use of a distinctive hat or shoulder patch to denote the soldier’s unit. Butterfield was also controversial, not well-liked by some, and tainted by politics. Award-winning author James S. Pula unspools fact from fiction to offer the first detailed and long overdue treatment of the man and the officer in Union General Daniel Butterfield: A Civil War Biography.

James S. Pula is a professor of History Emeritus at Purdue University Northwest and the former editor-in-chief of Gettysburg Magazine. Dr. Pula is the author or editor of more than two dozen books including Under the Crescent Moon with the Eleventh Corps in the Civil War (winner of the U. S. Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award); The Civil War from Its Origins to Reconstruction; The 117th New York Infantry in the Civil War: A History and Roster; For Liberty and Justice: A Biography of Brig. Gen. Włodzimierz B. Krzyżanowski; and The Sigel Regiment: A History of the 26th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865 (winner of the Gambrinus Prize in History from the Milwaukee County Historical Society).