We are fortunate to have as our speaker this month Dr. Daniel E. Sutherland, a professor of history at UA Fayetteville.  Dan is the recipient of fellowships from the national Endowment for the Humanities and from the Andrew J. Mellon Foundation.

He has authored eight books (and edited four others) including Fredericksburg & Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark Campaign (University of Nebraska Press, 1988), A Very Violent Rebel (University of Tennessee Press, 1995), The Confederate Carpetbaggers (Louisiana State University Press, 1988) and Seasons of War (Free Press, 1995), for which he received both the Douglas Southall Freeman Award and the Laney Award.

He edited Guerrillas, Unionists, and Violence on the Confederate Home Front and his presentation to us will be about guerilla warfare during the Civil War, what Sutherland refers to as ?the desperate side of war.

Merriam-Webster defines guerilla as:  (n) a person who engages in irregular warfare esp. as a member of an independent unit carrying out harassment and sabotage.  (adj) of, relating to, or characteristic of guerrillas esp. in being aggressive, radical, or unconventional.

THANKS TO Dr. Brian Steel Wills, UVA- Wise, for his presentation in August on Forrest in the Summer of ?64.  Brian, as usual, gave an outstanding and informative talk.  We look forward to his return in 2005.  Thanks, also, to member Jim Ayers for all his assistance before and during Brian's visit (as well as his hospitality).

PROGRAMS TO COME:

October 28, 2003--Landon Smith, Jackson, Miss., Prai-rie d'Ane.

November 25, 2003--Rob MacGregor, Little Rock, Jefferson Davis, Before & After the Civil War. (Election of Officers)

December, 2003--No meeting.

OUR PROGRAM CHAIRMAN Gaylord Northrop has continued the tradition of scheduling programs into the next year. So here?s 2004 (so far):

January 27, 2004--Drew Hodges, North Little Rock, Lee's War Horse: Pete Longstreet.
February 24, 2004--TBA
March 23, 2004--Jim Woodrick, Jackson, Miss. CWRT, TBA.
April 27, 2004--Dr. William Shea, UA-Monticello, TBA
May 25, 2004--Cal Collier, Towson, Md., TBA
June 22, 2004--TBA
July 27, 2004--Gaylord Northrop, Sherwood, Command & Control in Confederate Arkansas.
August 24, 2004--Supt. Ralph Jones, Fort Gibson, Okla., The Battle of Honey Springs.
September 28, 2004--Dr. Tom DeBlack, Arkansas Tech, Fire & Sword: Arkansas 1861-1864.
October 26, 2004--TBA
 November 23, 2004--TBA

FROM The Civil War Round Table of Chicago:
The Civil War Round Table of Chicago will present its annual Nevins-Freeman Award to Jerry L. Russell on Friday October 10, 2003. Mr. Russell will speak to the Round Table at that meeting, on the topic Battlefield Preservation--From the Beginning. The dinner meeting is at the Chicago Mart Plaza Holiday Inn, 350 N. Orleans, Chicago, and visitors are welcome.

The Nevins-Freeman Award is presented annually to an individual who has made a distinguished contribution to our study and knowledge of the history and heritage of the Civil War.  The Civil War Round Table of Chicago, which was the first Civil War Round Table, established in December 1940, inaugurated this award in 1974, when Bruce Catton was chosen as the first recipient. Mr. Russell is our honoree for 2003.  Other honorees have included Ralph G. Newman (founder of The Chicago Civil War Round Table), T. Harry Williams, Bell I. Wiley, E.B. ?Pete? Long, Edwin C. Bearss, James I. ?Bud? Robertson, Frank E. Vandiver, John Hope Franklin, Richard B. Harwell, John Y. Simon, Robert K. Krick, Mark E. Neely, Jr., Marshall Krolick, Gary W. Gallagher, Shelby Foote, Stephen B. Oates, Alan T. Nolan, Richard Current, James M. McPherson, Wiley Sword, Charles P. Roland, Brooks Davis, and Harold Holzer.---The Civil War Round Table of Chicago (1940-2003)

I'D LIKE TO TELL you about a Civil War battle (1864) that you may have never heard of.  It occurred in the broken country of southeastern Colorado, and involved Colorado militia and Cheyenne Indians.
We visited this battlefield last week, with Ed Bearss.  It's called Sand Creek. I'd like to share with you some information that we sent out during and after the Order of the Indian Wars meeting, and ask you to once again help us try to keep the National Park Service on the right side in a battlefield preservation situation.

First, the message to our INDIAN WARS NETWORK on September 5, the day of our tour to Sand Creek:  September 5, 2003/ (re-run) 

We had a great visit to Sand Creek today, and were really impressed at the evidence that has been gathered over the last six or seven years that the ?Sand Creek Massacre? site planned to be a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service didn?t occur only on the land which Southwest Entertainment (an Indian casino corporation) has purchased and deeded to the Cheyenne Tribe of Oklahoma.

The site we visited today, on the Bowen Ranch, was very believable as the site of the Black Kettle Village. See the news release below that we sent out to various Colorado newspapers, the Associated Press Bureau in Denver, and USA Today.

ORDER OF THE INDIAN WARS
PO Box 7401, Little Rock AR 72217 <indianwars@aristotle.net>
FOR RELEASE, FRIDAY, 11:00 a.m., SEPTEMBER 5, 2003
CONTACT JERRY RUSSELL, Ramada Inn, Colorado Springs, 719-633-5541
INDIAN WARS STUDY GROUP VISITS THE REAL SAND CREEK SITE
EADS, COLO.--A group of Indian Wars students from around the country, and even from the United Kingdom, came to Eads today on the way to see the ?real? Sand Creek site.

While the National Park Service has designated another site, this group, led by the legendary battlefield guide Edwin C. Bearss, chief historian emeritus for the National Park Service who retired in 1995 after half a century in the NPS, will visit the Bowen Ranch, in Kiowa County. Steered by some of its members, the OIW decided to try to visit the Bowen Ranch, outside of Eads, based on the convincing arguments in favor of this site, rather than the NPS site, the ?traditional? site, which includes another area ranch recently purchased by an Indian casino company and deeded to the Cheyenne Tribe of Oklahoma.

Jerry Russell of Little Rock, Ark., national chairman of the Order of Indian Wars, set the stage for his group at yesterday?s opening session in Colorado Springs. At dawn on November 29, 1864, about 650 soldiers from Colorado?s First and Third cavalry units, led by Col. John Chivington, a Methodist minister, attacked the camp of Chief Black Kettle on the Big Sandy, killing over 160 Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women, and children.  The camp had been identified as providing shelter to some of the marauding Indians who had terrorized western Kansas and eastern Colorado that summer and fall. Because of the deaths of ?innocents,? and the barbarous actions of some of the soldiers--who claimed only to be duplicating the savagery of the Indian raiders--this has become known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

 Two years earlier, several hundred white settlers had been killed and savaged during the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota.  Afterward, rumors flew across the frontier that the Indian tribes were on the warpath.  Stagecoaches were raided, mail carriers refused to travel across the Plains. Newspaper headlines raged ?Indian vs. White Man, More Indian Outrages, The Indians Are Coming!

In June of 1864, the Hungate family was killed by four Arapaho on their ranch 25 miles southeast of Denver.  The mutilated bodies, including those of two children, were brought to the five-year old town and placed on public display. Historian Tom Noel says the impact was immediate.  Nowadays we find it hard to believe there was a real possibility that all whites in Denver could be wiped out by Indians.  But when people saw those girls carved up, it certainly enhanced that possibility in their minds.By August, Territorial Governor John Evans received authorization for a 100-day volunteer regiment, the Colorado 3d Cavalry.
Col. George L. Shoup commanded the 3rd Colorado Cavalry, but the field commander at Sand Creek was a 6-foot-5-inch former Methodist preacher who had gained public renown by his heroic actions during the Civil War?s New Mexico Campaign, driving back the invading Texas Confederates at the Battle of Glorieta Pass.

Col. Chivington?s mission was to punish the hostile marauders, Arapaho and Cheyenne. He recruited soldiers for the new regiment, and conducted uneventful patrols along the Platte River.  The lack of action caused the uneasy and frightened settlers to dub the regiment ?the bloodless Thirdsters.
The ?Peace Chiefs? among the Indians, including Black Kettle of the Cheyenne, had been given an ultimatum by Gov. Evans--surrender or risk attack.  A summit of white and Indian leaders was held at Denver?s Camp Weld; both Chivington and Black Kettle were present.
When the Cheyenne asked how he could protect his people, he was told to move the tribe and report to Fort Lyon, south of Denver, and turn himself in.

A big misunderstanding of the affair comes from the fact that Black Kettle's Cheyennes did not turn themselves in.  They did not camp at Ft. Lyon, and they were not fed and protected.  When they returned from Camp Weld, Black Kettle even told John Prowers, that they left Denver and the whites and could not make any treaty of peace with them.  The Indians who camped and were fed at Lyon were Arapahos.  The Arapahos were told to move away.  They moved, and they were not attacked.
This, according to historian and author Greg Michno, is a salient point that almost everyone keeps missing.  The Cheyennes who were attacked on Sand Creek were not those camped near Lyon; they were the Indians who had been raiding all summer and held seven white captives in the village.

Col. Chivington and his men showed up at Fort Lyon, and asked about the Cheyenne. They were told that Black Kettle?s tribe had moved to Sand Creek.  The ?hostile? Cheyennes, they told Col. Chivington, were camped 50 miles away from Sand Creek at Smoky Hill.  Attacking Black Kettle would be wrong, Col. Chivington was told. He replied, Damn any man who is in sympathy with an Indian, and prepared his ?bloodless? troops for action.

A French philosopher once said, when you travel back in time, leave yourself behind.  The whites of the time were terrified by the prospect of Indian uprising.  The Indians were outraged at the white men taking over their land.  There was misunderstanding, racism, bigotry, and barbarous behavior on both sides.
Col. Chivington?s men rode all night toward Sand Creek--about 500 volunteers from the Colorado 3d Cavalry, 125 seasoned 1st Cavalry troops from Fort Lyon, and four 12-pounder mountain howitzers (small, mobile cannon).  They arrived at dawn and attacked the sleeping village.

For six hours, the Colorado troops rained shot and shell on the village with rifles and cannons, chasing the fleeing Indians--Arapaho and Cheyenne--up and down Sand Creek, slaying--some say butchering--men, women, and children, cutting away body parts as trophies, as the Indian marauders had been wont to do.
Col. Chivington had addressed his troops at first light ?I don?t tell you to kill all ages and sexes, but look back on the plains of the Platte, where your mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters have been slain.?  Some have reported that the Methodist parson added, ?Nits make lice.

Mike Koury of Old Army Press will tell you later today in detail about the circumstances which led to this battle. At the urging of a Congressional committee which had been formed to look at Civil War atrocities, Sand Creek was condemned as a ?gross and wanton massacre.?  Territorial Governor Evans was later removed from office; Chivington went unpunished.  Perhaps during our Friday tour, we can form some impressions of our own as to what happened and where it happened. We?re very fortunate that the Bowen family--Buster, the patriarch, and Chuck and Sheri, are allowing us to visit this site on their property.  The Bowens ?found? the site, and documented the find in 1997-98, long before the Park Service began its investigations.  They were asked by NPS to write a report on their finding, and a 41-page report, plus maps; the Park Service condensed it to 1 ? pages in the back of their site study book, without crediting the Bowen family for the finding of the site.  None of the ?official? reports even mentioned the Bowen Ranch.  But they persevered.

The family agreed for NPS to have 90 days for archeology and research; NPS took two days on their line, one of which was a media day. In those two days, Chuck Bowen told me, they became experts and knew the extent of the Indian camp and the movement of the troops on our land. He continued I've spent 51 years in some manner on the ranch at Sand Creek and 10 years of passionate interest in this historic event.  There is no way they could have concluded accurately what was on our land in that short amount of time. The Bowens have literally walked miles and miles, back and forth across the village site, discovering thousands of artifacts--documented by GPS coordinates--which prove the existence of the Indian village at the site.

We just happen to want to have the full story preserved, Chuck Bowen said. Our interest is to inform the public of our discovery in 97 and ?98 and the story the artifacts tell.  I think it is important to note we have part, if not most, of the camp (and I believe Black Kettle?s camp) while the NPS has been saying we had the rifle pits and running battle area. We are very grateful to the Bowen family, and to our members in the area who told us about the family, and the ranch--the real Sand Creek.  The Bowens are not taking sides about the 1864 attack, referred to for 140 years as Sand Creek Massacre.  They are just concerned that whatever story is told will be told at the ?real? site of the Cheyenne village.

As Chuck told me, We just want to make our contribution to the story of Sand Creek, examining what happened then from 139 years in the future.  We see this as an opportunity to help Kiowa County and Prewers County in the developing heritage tourism activities of our area. In a recent development, the National Park Service has decided to rethink the boundaries of the Sand Creek battle, now believing that the extent of the action involved more acreage than previously believed.  Once the boundaries of the National Historic Landmark are decided, extensive archaeological research will be con-ducted, to enable the Park Service to present a fair and balanced presentation in the interpretation of the site.

(Then there was other information on the program Thursday afternoon, and the program schedule for the remainder of the weekend.)

Then the commentary:
The really disappointing thing about this project is how the Park Service is treating it.
As it now stands, the site will be called the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Landmark.
The preliminary report published by the Park Service refers to the ?Sand Creek Massacre Site.
This report even refers to the Massacre Monument? on the Dawson Ranch site, although the monument there clearly says The Battle of Sand Creek. It has been referred to for 139 years as the Sand Creek Massacre.?  But there IS evidence to refute this title (just as there IS evidence to support this title).  But, we believe it is the job of the National Park Service to present a fair and balanced interpretation of the battle without passing 21st century judgement on the participants.

Just tell it like it is, without the politically-correct, judgmental commentary.
Sand Creek Massacre? is very divisive terminology,  just as the term Custer Massacre was before it fell out of favor and out of use. We'd like to ask you to write your US Senators (c/o U.S. Senate, Washington DC 20510) and your Member of Congress (c/o House of Representatives, Washington DC 20515), and ask them to

1. Get and send to you, from the National Park Service, a copy of the Sand Creek Massacre Site
report;

2.  Instruct the Park Service to delete the divisive and judgmental term ?massacre? from all Park Service material dealing with the Sand Creek site. Those are two simple requests, letters that might take you three minutes each to write.

Your letters could make the difference between fair and balanced interpretation at the Battle of Sand Creek site, or judgmental, divisive interpretation at the Battle of Sand Creek site.
 This is no way should be taken as approval of the actions which occurred on both sides.  War is terrible.  Combat leads to barbarous actions, usually on both sides.  But making judgements on actions that took place almost 139 years ago, by the yardstick of today?s standards, are not the job of the National Park Service.

Please write your federal elected officials and tell them so.

Finally, I'd like to make one more request of those who are internet savvy:  Please go to <www.kiowacountycolo.com> and sign the guest book. Tell them you have just read about a national meeting that visited the Sand Creek site on the Bowen Ranch, and understand that it was an excellent tour, making a persuasive case for believing that the site of Black Kettle's village was on the Bowen Ranch.
Chuck and Sheri Bowen, and their family, deserve a great deal of credit for this discovery, but they have been pretty well ignored by the National Park Service (as was laid out in the news release above).
Please do this, for the Bowens, and for Indian Wars history. These people deserve our help, and history cries out for our help! Jerry L. Russell

NOTED MILITARY HISTORIAN and author James Bradley will appear at a reception and book signing to benefit the MacArthur Museum of Military History from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 15.  The book signing will be followed by a lecture at 8 p.m. Bradley's book, Flags of Our Fathers, was a New York Times #1 bestseller.  It was described by the late Stephen Ambrose as the best battle book I have ever read, and Steven Spielberg has acquired  movie rights.

PATRICK CLEBURNE AWARD GIVEN TO TWO LITTLE ROCK HISTORIANS

Two Little Rock historians--Dr. Bobby Roberts and Dr. Carl Moneyhon, both of Little Rock--were presented an award for their contributions to Arkansas? Civil War history at a recent symposium on Arkansas in the Civil War at the Old State House in Little Rock.

The Patrick Cleburne Award, a replica CSA officers sword, has been presented by the Civil War Round Table of Arkansas, in Little Rock, since 1996.  The first recipient was Edwin C. Bearss, the chief historian emeritus of the National Park Service, and author of Steele?s Retreat From Camden and The Battle of Jenkins Ferry.  Mr. Bearss, then a supervisory historian for NPS, drew up the original plan for the establishment of the Pea Ridge National Military Park in northwest Arkansas, and has been a consultant for the State Department of Parks & Tourism for Prairie Grove State Battlefield Park east of Fayetteville.
Other recipients include:

(1997) Jerry L. Russell of Little Rock, charter president of the Civil War Round Table of Arkansas in 1964 and national chairman of Civil War Round Table Associates, a national umbrella organization for Civil War study groups around the country; he also helped organize 10 other CWRTs in Arkansas;
?(1998) Don Hamilton of Little Rock, a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Arkansas, and chairman of the Central Arkansas Heritage Trail, which has developed a driving tour of the 1863 Little Rock Campaign, with appropriate signage at the various sites; (1999) the late William W. O?Donnell of Little Rock, a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Arkansas, and author of Civil War Quadrennium: Little Rock During the Civil War, published in 1986 and designated as a Arkansas Sesquicentennial book; (2000) Calvin L. Collier of Baltimore, Md., one of the founders of the Civil War Round Table of Arkansas, and author of three books on Arkansas units in the Confederate army--the 3d Arkansas Infantry, the 3d Arkansas Cavalry, and the 1st Arkansas Infantry; (2001) Former U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, who, during his term as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks, was instrumental in helping to preserve various Civil War battlefields, and was responsible for the establishment of the American Battlefield Preservation agency which surveyed the Civil War battlefields of America and works toward the protection and preservation of those sites; he also was instrumental in helping to develop the national Civil War sites at Pea Ridge and Arkansas Post, and the Civil War Heritage trails in Arkansas.

The awards given this year were for 2002-2003 and were given to both Dr. Roberts and Dr. Moneyhon to mark their joint efforts in the area of Civil War studies.

 Dr. Bobby Roberts, director of the Central Arkansas Library System, and Dr. Carl Moneyhon, a history professor at UALR, were the authors of Portraits of Conflict: Arkansas in the Civil War, which was the best-selling book published by the University of Arkansas Press to that time and was the first book in the UA Press? best-selling series.  A second edition, with many new images of Civil War soldiers and scenes in and from Arkansas, is expected to be published next year.  The book led to a series, and other Portraits of Conflict books have now been published for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, written by Dr. Moneyhon and Dr. Roberts, and Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, edited by the pair.  Several books remain to be published.

Dr. Roberts was formerly the curator at the UALR Library, and Dr. Moneyhon has been a professor of history at UALR for nearly two decades, and has written other books on the Civil War and Reconstruction.

FROM THE Newsletter of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago, June 2003
Excerpt from Battlefield Preservation Update
by Mary Munsell Abroe

CWPT Buys One Hundred-plus Acres at Fort Donelson: In mid-April, the Nashville Tennessean featured an article detailing the December 2002 purchase of 105 acres near Fort Donelson by the Civil War Preservation Trust.  The Trust acquired three parcels south of Dover, Tennessee for $350,000, leveraging its own funds in order to get half of the purchase price from the $50-million Civil War Battlefield Preservation Act that was signed by President Bush last December.

According to Ed Bearss, Fort Donelson is ?one of the most unprotected battlefields left in the U.S.?  Jim Campi, spokesman for the Trust, indicated that the acquisition encompasses a fifty-acre tract east of the Forge Road leading to Nashville, ?where 70% of the Union casualties occurred during the battle and where Nathan Bedford Forrest broke out of the Union lines.?  That tract and the other two likely will be donated to Fort Donelson National Battlefield, but only after congressional legislation expands park boundaries to allow for their inclusion.  According to Supt. Richard Hanks of Fort Donelson, ?...part of ..(the land) will be left as battlefield, and someday we may use it as a tour route.?  He went on to emphasize that ?this is (a) very, very significant historical property. It?s a wonderful step for the future of this park and the community, because it will allow this park to become more widely recognized.

FROM THE SKIRMISH LINE, newsletter of the San Diego CWRT, August 20, 2003, Volume 17, #8
UNITED STATES PRESIDENT WHO BECAME A CONFEDER-ATE GENERAL, by Gene Armistead

It is well known and often com-mented upon that many Confederate leaders had held high offices in the United States govern-ment or army prior to the Civil War.  Many had been Congress-men, Senators, cabinet officers, or higher-ranking Army officers. Joseph E. Johnston had been Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army. Former President John Tyler served as a Confederate Provisional Congressmen and was elected to serve in the first regular Congress.  These were not the highest ranking U.S. officials to serve the Confederacy though.

It takes but a very slight ?twist? of history to find that one former President of the United States later became a Confederate Brigadier General.  This American was a noted man of his day but is now almost forgotten. The term of office of President James K. Polk expired on March 3, 1849.  His successor, President Zachary Taylor, refused to be sworn into office on that date because it was a Sun-day. According to the law of Presidential succession of that era, when both the President and the Vice Pres-ident were not able to serve, the President of the Senate was to act as President. When President Polk?s term expired, that man was David Rice Atchison of Missouri.  Therefore, from the expiration of Polk?s term until the swearing in of Taylor - one day, Senator Atchison became President of the United States.

It is alleged that President Atchison slept through his entire ?term? of office as a result of an exhausting week of pre-inaugural activities.   A dozen years later found Atchison a Brigadier General of the Missouri State Militia.

As part of Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard, Atchison led a detachment in a successful attack on Union forces in Missouri.  His report of that action, which can be found in the OFFICIAL RECORDS OF THE WAR OF THE REBELLION, was signed by Atchison as General.  He saw no further active service during the Civil War, but Atchison?s combat roll as a State-rank general against Union troops certainly gives him the claim - as later it did many others - to having been a Confederate General.
Both Atchison, Kansas, and Atchison County, Missouri, are named after him.  He died at the age of 79 and is buried at Plattsburgh, Missouri, where his grave monument reads, David Rice Atchison, President of the United States, For One Day, 1807-1886.