Cleveland Civil War Roundtable

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The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable is a nonprofit historical society and social group dedicated to the study and discussion of the Civil War (1861–1865).

The men and women of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable reflect the ethnic, racial and religious diversity of Greater Cleveland. Its approximately one hundred twenty members range in age from 17 to 94 years old, at every level of interest and historical expertise. Its common bond is the belief that the Civil War was the defining event of American history. It honors those who fought, suffered and died to preserve the Union, uphold the Constitution and destroy slavery. It also honors, for their courage and their bravery, those who fought, suffered and died for the cause of Southern Independence, a cause in which they genuinely believed. Further, it celebrates the reunion of the states that comprise the United States, and the reunion of those states, with one nation and one people under one flag.

The Cleveland group is the second-oldest Civil War roundtable in the country, after Chicago's. Since its founding in 1957, its members have met monthly from September to May. It meets at the Cleveland Play House Club, on Cleveland's East Side, for drinks and conversation, followed by dinner and a speaker or presentation on a Civil War topic. It also has an annual debate on a Civil War topic. Each meeting lasts approximately three hours and costs each member $25, meal included.

In addition to regular monthly meetings, its members also take an out-of-town weekend field trip in late September or early October, every year, to battlefields or important Civil War-related sites. Roundtable contingents went to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1997; Antietam, Maryland, in 1998; Richmond, Virginia, in 1999; Washington, D.C., in 2000; Charleston, South Carolina, in 2001; Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in 2002; Shiloh, Tennessee, in 2003; Franklin, Tennessee, in 2004; Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania, Virginia, in 2005; and Perryville, Kentucky and the Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2006. Members also take other field trips on occasion, to nearby sites of interest, and have in recent years visited the James A. Garfield National Historic Site (Lawnfield), President James A. Garfield's home in Mentor, Ohio; the Western Reserve Historical Society's exhibit on the Civil War, in Cleveland; the new National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and the archaeological dig on the site of the former Confederate prisoner of war camp on Johnson's Island, near Sandusky, Ohio.

Past speakers have included authors Bruce Catton, Shelby Foote and Noah Andre Trudeau, military historian Ed Bearss, and many others. The Roundtable is now mounting a national grassroots campaign to convince Congress and the U.S. Navy to name a Virginia-class submarine after the ironclad USS Monitor. The Monitor fought the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia to a standstill on March 9, 1862, in the first battle between ironclad warships (see Battle of Hampton Roads).