Report of the May, 2002 Meeting Nadine Mironchuck, Secretary       The May 10th meeting of the Civil War Roundtable of the North Shore in Lynn was opened by President Dexter Bishop, as he led the membership in the Salute to the Flag.      Pres. Bishop has been praised for his stewardship of the very successful Capt. Oliver Wendell Holmes Dinner and award presentation, and was pleased to announce that a replica of the award that is given to the honorees for their work in Civil War history preservation will be placed in a location of prominence at the Lynn GAR Hall, so that the public can appreciate the work of the CWRT of the North Shore and have a sense of participating in the preservation of history themselves as they tour the beautiful Hall.     Al Smith spoke briefly about the exciting tour of Civil War Beacon Hill and the Statehouse that will take place on Saturday, June 22nd.  The fascinating African American Freedom Trail will focus on the abolition turmoil and Underground Railroad sites that made Boston a special center of Civil War history, and the Statehouse visit will focus on the magnificent artifacts held there that are of importance to Civil War history.     The speaker of the evening was Herb Szokke, who gave his impressive presentation on the Siege of Vicksburg.     This dramatic chapter in the story of the Civil War is always worth a retelling, because it had such a dramatic impact on the course of the war, the career of Gen. U.S. Grant, and on the morale of the country, from the President on down.  Coming at the same time as the victory at Gettysburg, it provided a contrast in outcomes that spurred Lincoln to cast the die in favor of a ruthless pursuit of the Confederate Army that was horrible to contemplate, brutal to carry out, and necessary to defeat the Rebel cause.     One of the first military campaign concepts entertained as the Southern states began to secede was the plan to "bottle up" the South with a naval blockade that would stretch from the mid-Atlantic, down to Florida around to the Gulf of Mexico, and up through the Mississippi River.  The Mississippi River was the thoroughfare of the country`s interior, Herb noted, and so it had to be controlled to stifle the prosperity of the western Confederacy.     Lengthy land campaigns were eventually the only feasible way of approaching the Mississippi, as a naval navigation south on the waterway was suicide at the point of the Vicksburg promontory overlooking the river.  The entrenchment had to be seized from the land-ward side. Herb`s description of the long land campaign through Tennessee and Mississippi was very enlightening, as it gave the audience a sense that the battle for every inch of ground was relentless.  The obstacles faced by Grant as he attempted to gain the Mississippi were great - he attempted to cut a canal across the land between sections of a U-shaped turn in the river; which he then abandoned; he marched through swamps to the south and crossed from the west bank to the east below Vicksburg, pulling off the biggest amphibious troop landing in American history up to the D-Day landing in WWII; he then marched north and found the opposition to be surprisingly scarce, the Rebels having decided to abandon a long defense of the region, choosing instead to flee to Vicksburg itself and to entrench for a defense of the city itself.     The campaign to gain Vicksburg was lengthy and lasted from early winter 1862 to the final victory on July 4th, 1863.  It featured the digging of trenches through which troops moved to encroach on the city from the rear in its perch above the Mississippi.  It also featured the starvation of a desperate population that finally had to surrender to the inevitable.     Herb`s clear and dramatic telling of this campaign made sense out of the complicated strategies employed in fighting that took place away from the more well-known battlefields in Virginia where the Army of the Potomac clashed with Lee`s forces.     The presentation ended with Herb taking questions, and the membership was urged to come to the June Pot Luck meeting, where a good time is promised for all.

Monitor: The Story of the Legendary Civil War Ironclad and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History James Tertius deKay (New York: Walker & Company, 1997.) Reviewed by Jim Piro       This book is a history of the most important naval invention of the 19th century. The Monitor forever changed naval warfare.     The concept, design and the building of this vessel was by John Ericsson who, by birth, was a Swede. His concept took shape in 1826. He approached the British Navy with his new ideas and the British Navy rejected all of his "modern" concepts. Spurned by the British, he immigrated to the United States in 1830. By 1837, he developed the screw propeller, which is the direct ancestor of all of the propellers that are used in virtually every motorized water vessel in the world today.      In 1842, he designed and supervised the construction of a wooden ship called the Princeton. This ship had a full set of sails and a steam engine with a propeller. The common propulsion mode, at this time, was with steam, side wheels and sails. His new ship had all of the mechanical devices below decks and, therefore, were protected. Side wheels were easy prey for attacking ships. He had also designed a 12-inch naval cannon that was on this ship. Another gun, designed by Robert Stockton, was also on the ship. An accident with Stockton`s cannon caused an explosion that killed eight people. Ericsson, because he was not born here, was blamed for the accident. Ericsson was never paid for his Princeton work and he was not very content with the U.S. Navy!     In 1854, Ericsson submitted to the French government a full set of plans for an iron Monitor prototype vessel. The French government rejected these plans but the plans and a cardboard model were shelved until the outbreak of The War of the Rebellion.     In 1862, the Union learned about the Confederate plans to make an ironclad vessel out of the hulk of the former U. S. Naval vessel, the Merrimac. The Union was in a panic and it started a search for a similar vessel. Through a series of political maneuvers, Ericsson and his partners were given the contract to design and manufacture an ironclad vessel. Ericsson`s plans were not for an ironclad vessel, but a100% iron vessel! Because of more politics, the Navy was not happy but the Monitor was built.      On March 8th, 1862, The C.S.S. Virginia (the former U.S. Merrimac) handed the U.S. Navy the most humiliating defeat it had been ever forced to endure. It would not suffer a more serious defeat until December 7th, 1941. News of this disaster threw Washington into a full-scale panic! There were rumors about the Virginia going into the Potomac River and bombarding the city. There was almost panic in the city but the Monitor was in Hampton Roads.     The defining battle took place on Sunday, March 9th, 1862 and it was a draw.     If the Monitor`s two eleven (11) inch solid shot cannons were fired as designed, we might tell a different story. These cannons were designed to fire a 180 pound projectile with a thirty-pound powder charge. Because of safety concerns, the Navy decided that they were to use only 15 pounds of powder. If any reader has ever been to a reenactment where cannons were on the field, you remember the deafening roar of those cannons.  Those cannons use 1¼ pounds of powder and they shoot blanks. Do you remember the noise? If you were inside the Monitor`s turret and fired one of those cannons with 15 pounds of powder, the noise would have been at least 15 times louder and in a confined iron box with no sound insulation and probably no ear protection! I wonder if any veterans returned from the war with hearing problems.     This is an excellent book, a quick read and you won`t be able to put it down!

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