Burrus (Buzz) Carnahan speaks to the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia on February 12, 2013, at the Fort McNair Officers' Club in Washington D.C. on the topic: "The Historical Roots of the Emancipation Proclamation.”

For additional information about his presentation, download CWRTDC's February 2013 newsletter available at http://cwrtdc-newsletters.blogspot.com/   For information about the Round Table or to apply for membership, visit http://www.cwrtdc.org

Summary of Presentation:
Dr. Carnahan delves into the historical roots of the Emancipation Proclamation. In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln declared he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it already existed," and stated that as President he would "have no lawful right to do so." Yet less than two years later, on January 1, 1863, he issued the final Emancipation Proclamation, recognizing the immediate freedom of slaves held in Confederate territory.

What led him to change his mind? Carnahan will explain how, ironically enough, the policies of Confederate President Jefferson Davis helped Lincoln develop a legal theory to justify the Proclamation. When his critics challenged the constitutional soundness of the act, Lincoln pointed to the international laws and usages of war as the legal basis for his Proclamation, asserting that the Constitution invested the president "with the law of war in time of war."

As the Civil War intensified, the Lincoln administration slowly and reluctantly accorded full belligerent rights to the Confederacy under the law of war. This included designating a prisoner of war status for captives, honoring flags of truce, and negotiating formal agreements for the exchange of prisoners -- practices that laid the intellectual foundations for emancipation. Once the United States allowed Confederates all the privileges of belligerents under international law, it followed that they should also suffer the disadvantages, including trial by military courts, seizure of property, and eventually the emancipation of slaves. While there were historical precedents for offering freedom to an enemy’s slaves in wartime, our speaker will also demonstrate that Lincoln’s action was more radical than anything that had previously been done.

Even after the Lincoln administration decided to apply the law of war, it was unclear whether state and federal courts would agree. Carnahan’s conclusion is that if the courts had decided that the proclamation was not justified, the result would have been the personal legal liability of thousands of Union officers to aggrieved slave owners. This argument offers further support to the view that Lincoln's delay in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation was an exercise of political prudence, not a personal reluctance to free the slaves. Carnahan further asserts that Lincoln was no reluctant emancipator; he wrote a truly radical document that treated Confederate slaves as an oppressed people rather than merely as enemy property. In this respect, Lincoln's proclamation anticipated the psychological warfare tactics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Introduction and Biography:
Burrus M. Carnahan is a Foreign Affairs Officer in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of State and a Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Previously, he was a private sector consultant on international arms control issues and is an authority on international law and arms control. Carnahan served for 20 years as a lawyer in the U.S. Air Force specializing in the law of war. From 1969 to 1989 he served as a Judge Advocate in the U.S. Air Force, specializing in international legal issues. From 1974 to 1978 he was an Associate Professor of Law at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He also participated in several international negotiations on arms control. Carnahan’s JD degree is from Northwestern University (1969) and he holds an LL.M from the University of Michigan (1974).

Carnahan is the author of Act of Justice: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War and Lincoln on Trial: Southern Civilians and the Law of War. Both books examine the role of law in the American Civil War. He has also penned numerous articles on Abraham Lincoln, international law, and the law of war. He was the principal researcher on United States legal practice for the International Committee of the Red Cross study on Customary International Humanitarian Law (Cambridge U. Press, 2005), and was U.S. correspondent for the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law.

Additionally, he has spoken on Lincoln and his era at the Abraham Lincoln Institute Symposium at the National Archives, the Gettysburg College Civil War Institute, the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky, and many other venues. In 2012, he was appointed to the Scholarly Advisory Group for President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home for a two year term.

Dr. Carnahan Speaks to the CWRTDC on the Historical Roots of the Emancipation Proclamation-2/12/2013

Robert Lee Hodge speaks to the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia on May 13 2014, at the Fort McNair Officers' Club in Washington D.C. on the topic: "Confederates in the Attic."

A PDF copy of the PowerPoint to Mr. Hodge's presentation is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/13SzkZoGlG9zLxZOWSccd_BEazPF3Yp7-/view (NOTE: For copyright purposes, the slides contained in this document vary in part from those displayed during the presentation and discussed in the audio recording).


Biography:
Robert Lee Hodge - born on Stonewall Jackson’s birthday - has had a keen interest in The War Between the States since age 4. 

For over 25 years Robert has worked in historical based films – from dramas like ABC's North and South and TNT’s Gettysburg and Andersonville, to many programs on The History Channel, Arts and Entertainment Channel, and the National Geographic Channel, to his own Civil War documentaries that have won 5 Tally awards and an Emmy in 2007. 

Mr. Hodge has been featured on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, NBC's Late, Late Show, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, the PBS program Going Places, C-SPAN II, and on the National Public Radio program Soundscapes. 

He has also written for The Nashville Tennessean, America’s Civil War magazine, The Washington Post, and North and South magazine. He played a major role in the New York Times' 1998 best-selling book Confederates in the Attic (and appears on the cover) hosting Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Tony Hurwitz, on an eclectic and memorable Civil War tour-de-force of historic sites.  

Mr. Hodge was a historical researcher, primarily at The National Archives and Library of Congress, working with nationally-recognized experts. He also was principle researcher on Time-Life Books 18-volume series Voices of the Civil War and The Illustrated History of the Civil War. 

 He became interested in preserving historic green space when he interned with the National Park Service's Civil War Sites Advisory Commission. Rob has organized battlefield preservation fundraisers that have garnered over $140,000 for the purchase of endangered battlefield land. He serves on the board of directors of the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, an organization that has protected nearly one thousand acres near Fredericksburg, Virginia.  

___________________________

For additional information about his presentation, download CWRTDC's May 2014 newsletter available at http://cwrtdc-newsletters.blogspot.com/   

For information about the Round Table or to apply for membership, visit http://www.cwrtdc.org

Robert Lee Hodge Speaks to the CWRTDC on the "Confederates in the Attic" - 5/13/2014

Ed Bearss Speaks to the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia about Grierson's Raid in 1863.  on December 12, 2017, at the Fort McNair Officers' Club in Washington, D.C.

More information about the topic and the speaker is available at cwrtdc-audio.blogspot.com/p/bearss-audio6.html

A copy of a map to accompany his presentation is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bIrNhlRlAIZUb5uyKNf0BLECAM4T0nUa/view?usp=sharing 

About the Topic: 
Grierson’s Raid was arguably the most effective cavalry raid of the entire Civil War. While many of the most famous cavalry raids were launched by Confederate leaders, such as J.E.B Stuart or Nathan Bedford Forrest, this was a Union raid. It was commanded by Benjamin Grierson who, despite a pre-war dislike of horses, quickly proved himself to be a brilliant cavalry commander.  

His raid was part of Grant's successful campaign against the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River. Grant’s infantry were marching down the west bank of the river, getting into a position from where they could cross over onto the east bank south of Vicksburg. Grierson was ordered to launch a raid through the heart of the state of Mississippi to distract Confederate attention from Grant’s move and force the Confederates to move troops away from the city.

Starting with three regiments (about 1,700 men) located near La Grange, Tennessee, Grierson’s aim was to reach the Southern Railroad of Mississippi and destroy as much of it as possible. From there he could either return to La Grange or head south to the Union position at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

One of the reasons for his success was his willingness to split his force. On April 20, 1863, Grierson sent 175 men (what he called the “least effective portion of the command”) to La Grange with orders to make it appear that the entire expedition had returned. He then headed south with his larger force, fighting a series of minor skirmishes (the Official Records list eleven) and avoiding the Confederates chasing him. 

On April 24, Grierson reached the Southern Railroad and inflicted considerable damage. After learning more about the size of the Confederate forces behind him, he decided to continue south to Baton Rouge, reaching it safely on May 2. 

In 16 days, Grierson’s men had marched 600 miles and fought multiple skirmishes, but with limited casualties: three dead, seven wounded, eight sick left behind, and nine missing.  On the Confederate side, however, Grierson claimed in his report to have killed and wounded 100 Confederates, captured another 500, damaged between 50 and 60 miles of railroad, destroyed over 3,000 stand of arms, and commandeered 1,000 horses and mules. 

At the end of the raid, Grierson learned that at least 5,000 men had been sent out to capture him, which included a considerable number of Pemberton’s cavalry, detached from Vicksburg at a crucial moment when they would have been better used to watch Grant on the Mississippi.   
According to some, Grierson’s Raid was the most successful cavalry raid of the war for two reasons. First, it played a direct role in the success of Grant's main expedition against Vicksburg. Many of the Confederate raids arguably had no more than nuisance value (although Stuart’s ride around McClellan’s army on the Peninsula in the previous year could claim a similar significance as playing a part in the defeat of that army). Second, Grierson had successfully taken a large cavalry force through entirely hostile territory in the heart of the Confederacy. Stuart, on the other hand, had been operating in Virginia, and other Confederate cavalry raids were made in friendly parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. 

Thus, Grierson’s raid was an early example of the Union’s ability to bring the war to the heart of the Confederacy, which was repeated on a broader scale by Sherman in Georgia and the Carolinas over the next two years.

Ed Bearss Speaks to the CWRTDC About “Grierson's Raid” - 12/12/2017

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