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Upcoming Meetings and Presentations

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Leight Murray, President of the Civil War Round Table of the Mid-Ohio Valley, and Jerrie Berentz, Education Committee Chairperson, announce the organization's 2023 event calendar.

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Meetings are open to the public and there are no required membership dues or admission fees to attend.  Small donations are accepted to offset a portion of the cost of the meetings.

 

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Thursday, November 16, 2023 – Cassius Marcellus Clay, Emancipationist, 1810 --1903 presented by Mel Stewart Hankla, Historian, Educator, and Craftsman. 

 

7:00 p.m., St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 320 2nd Street, Marietta.
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Cassius M. Clay was the youngest son of General Green Clay and Sally Lewis Clay.  Although raised by one of the wealthiest landowners and largest slaveholders in Kentucky, Cassius did not approve of the institution of slavery. It was while at University that Clay devoted his time to speaking and fighting for the gradual emancipation of slaves. He traveled to various political rallies to speak and at one political rally, Clay met and befriended Abraham Lincoln. Clay campaigned for Lincoln in 1860, and received the appointment of Minister to Russia when Lincoln took Presidential office.  While serving as Ambassador to Russia, Clay was very influential in negotiating the United States’ purchase of Alaska from Russia. 

Because of his outspokenness against slavery in a pro-slavery area, his willingness to fight for those beliefs, and scandal within his own personal life, Clay had been one of the most controversial Kentuckians of his time; yet, his support of Lincoln and of the Union helped to preserve the United States. 
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Mel Hankla is a collector, researcher, speaker and writer of Kentucky’s heritage and an authority on the history surrounding the Kentucky Longrifle.  He is a past president of the Contemporary Longrifle Association and editor of American Tradition magazine. He is a builder of traditional Kentucky Longrifles and in 1984 was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts grant to apprentice with master riflesmith Hershel House.

A historical actor, he has worked 18 years with the Kentucky Humanities Council presenting Chautauqua characters of frontiersman Simon Kenton and Gen. George Rogers Clark.

Most recently he was cast for the leading roll, in the PBS documentary, An Audacious American, the story of abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay. 

A noted writer, he has contributed articles to many publications and is currently working on a book, "Up the Valley & Thru the Gap - Following the migration of Kentucky's Rifle Smiths."  Lectures reporting his research towards the publication of this book have been presented to: The Kentucky Rifle Association, The Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation, The Kentucky Historical Society, The Owen County Historical Society, and will be presented at the 2014 Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) Conference on Southern Material Culture, October 23-25.

 

As always, there is no cost and the public is welcome to attend this event. The meeting venue is accessible for those with mobility limitations and
accommodations for other disabilities will be considered upon request.
Please see www.cwrtmov.org for more information about these organizations and this event and direct questions to cwrtmov@gmail.com.

Calendar of Events
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Calendar of Evens
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Thursday, November 16, 2023 – Cassius Marcellus Clay, Emancipationist, 1810 --1903 presented by Mel Stewart Hankla, Historian, Educator, and Craftsman. 

7:00 p.m., St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 320 2nd Street, Marietta.
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Past programs
Past Programs and Presenters

2023

  • General Moses: Stories from the Life of Harriet Tubman: Ilene Evans, M.A.

  • Texas Terror: Revolution and Secession in the Lone Star State: Brian Schoen

  • Lincoln's Navy: The Men, Ships and Organization, 1861-1865: Donald L. Canney

  • Civil War Quilts, Meta Van Nostran, M.A., author, retired

  • Charlotte Scott Historical Marker Dedication (Marcia E. Cole "A Marker for Charlotte Scott" YouTube Video)

  • Unthinkable Outcomes from the Battle of Port Royal: The Impact of the Civil War on the South Carolina Low Country and Introduction to the Gullah Geechee, Victoria Smalls

 

2022

  • The Trouble With Monuments: Wes Clarke

  • Armistead and Hancock: Behind the Gettysburg Legend of Two Friends at the Turning Point of the Civil War, Tom McMillan

  • George Armstrong Custer at Gettysburg, Dave Finney

  • Seceding from Secession: The Civil War, Politics, and the Creation of West Virginia, Eric Wittenberg

  • The Lincoln Assassination Trial, Kevin Ritter

  • Meade at Gettysburg: A Study in Command, Kent Masterson Brown

  • The Seventh West Virginia Infantry: An Embattled Union Regiment from the Civil War’s Most Divided State, David Mellott

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2021

  • But Not For My Children: The Holland Brothers' Unlikely Journey from Slavery, Scott Britton

  • Ohio Women in the Civil War Home Front, Kelly Mezurek, author, lecturer, and Professor of American History at Walsh University

  • The Fragile Fabric of Union: Cotton, Federal Politics, and the Global Origins of the Civil War. Brian Schoen, Assistant Professor of History at Ohio University

  • Behind Enemy Lines: Harriet Tubman in the Civil War - The Port Royal Experiment Ilene Evans, Davis WV, dancer, historian, teacher, storyteller, and creator of General Moses: Stories from the Life of Harriet Tubman, will tell us about one of her favorite subjects. 

  • The Underground Railroad in Southeast Ohio, Peter N. Cultice, an attorney and historian from Zanesville, Ohio

  • "Music and Narrative of the Civil War", Steve Ball, Columbus OH, musician and storyteller.

 

2020

  • A Mouldering in the Grave: John Brown's Raid and the Abolitionists' Cause on the Eve of the Civil War, Brian Schoen, Assistant Professor of History, Ohio University

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2019

  • Gettysburg Hero: The Life of Marietta's Rufus R. Dawes, Scott A. Britton

  • Ohio at The Battle of Shiloh, Dan Hinton

  • Women's Clothing in the Civil War, Jessica Cyders

  • Lee Versus Everyone Else and Then Grant, Jeffrey W. Danner, M.A.

  • Black Men in Blue: The Civil War, Ohio, and U.S. Colored Troops, Kelly Selby, Ph.D.

  • Touched By Conflict: Southeast Ohio in the Civil War, Larry Strayer, J.D.

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2018

  • Women of Gettysburg:  Their Experiences from Written Legacies, Jane Ellen Young, M.S.

  • Morgan's Great Raid: Taking the War to the North, David Mowery

  • The Last Fourteen Days of Father Abraham, Robert Burgler, M.A.

  • The Bermuda Hundred Campaign, George L. Fickett

  • Ohio and West Virginia Troops at Petersburg, Edward Alexander

  • Soldier Fraternization Throughout the American Civil War, Lauren K. Thompson, Ph.D.

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2017

  • The Anaconda Plan and the Civil War on the Water, Gary Johnson, P.E.

  • Opdycke's Tigers at Chickamauga, Larry Strayer, J.D.

  • John C. Breckenridge, U.S. Vice-President, Confederate General and Secretary of War, Larry Emerson

  • Decapitating the Union: The Confederate Plot to Assassinate Lincoln, John C. Fazio, J.D.

  • The Controversial History of the Confederate Flag, Jeffrey W. Danner, M.A.

  • Washington County Generals in the Civil War, Scott A. Britton

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2016

  • Emancipation Proclamation, Peter N. Cultice, J.D.

  • Give Them Rocks: Stonewall Jackson's Stand at Second Manassas, Dan Welch, M.A.

  • A Personal Conversation with Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Doug Riley

  • Civil War Leader from Parkersburg's Julia-Ann Square Historic District, Katherine L. Brown, Ph. D.

  • Soldier of Courage, Solider of Compassion: The Story of Capt. Bennet K. Munger, Brian S. Kesterson, M.A.

  • Pathway to Freedom: Foundation for the Abolitionist Movement, Bill Reynolds

 

2015

  • Intrepid Mariners: U.S.S.Kearsarge v. C.S.S. Alabama, John C. Fazio, J.D.

  • Courage, Honor, Love in the Civil War: Rufus R. Dawes and Mary Gates Dawes, Steven R. Magnusen, P.E.

  • Ku Klux Klan: From Nathan Bedford Forest to Ohio's Klan in the 1920s, William Trollinger, Ph.D.

  • Mother Bickerdyke, Carolyn Caskey

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