Randy has been with us before and is well versed on his subject, John Sappington Marmaduke (March 14, 1833 – December 28, 1887) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, and was governor of Missouri from 1884 until his death in 1887.

antebellum culture into a new Missouri in which former Unionists and Confederates worked together.

Marmaduke was the offspring of a prominent Saline County clan who were leaders of the Boonslick Democracy, a powerful political alliance of Southern aristocrats and yeoman farmers, many of whom were also slaveholders before the War Between the States. His Virginia-born father, Miles M. Marmaduke, was elected lieutenant governor in 1840 and succeeded briefly to the governorship when Thomas Reynolds committed suicide.

The second son among ten children, Marmaduke studied at Yale and Harvard and earned his lieutenant’s commission from West Point. When the issue of secession split Missouri, the father supported the Union while the son sided with the South. His initial battle was an embarrassment: his ragtag bunch of Southern militia fled the Unionists in an 1861 skirmish waggishly dubbed the Boonville Races.

His subsequent career, with stints as a cavalry leader, was distinguished, and he rose to the rank of major general. While under Gen. Sterling Price’s command near Helena, Arkansas, in September 1863, however, he fell out with his immediate superior, Gen. Lucius “Marsh” Walker. Marmaduke suggested that Walker’s absence from the field had imperiled Marmaduke’s men in the face of the enemy. Walker resented this implication of cowardice and challenged Marmaduke to a duel.

“I have not pronounced you a coward,” Marmaduke wrote back harshly, “but I desire to inform you that your conduct as commander of the cavalry … was such that I determined no longer to serve you.” Consequently, at first light September 6, the two generals faced each other with Colt Navy revolvers. Both fired and missed. Marmaduke recocked and fired, striking Walker with a killing shot. Marmaduke offered his assistance, and Walker, in his failing moments, forgave his subordinate.

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MINUTES FROM MEETING

The officers for Civil War Roundtable for the  year 2007 :

Ron  Kelly  –  President

Rick  Meadows  -  Vice President

Charles Durnett – Secretary

Brian  Brown – Treasurer

EVENTS FROM JANUARY

Churchill ordered his whole force, which he reported as "3,000 effective men," to take positions in trenches about one-and-a-half miles below the fort to block the direct line of advance along the river between Nortrebe's farm and Fort Hindman. But enfilading fire from the gunboats Rattler and Black Hawk forced the Confederates to withdraw to the fort and adjoining positions. Defective powder limited the range of Fort Hindman's big guns preventing them from effectively challenging the gunboats.

McClernand planned to move his troops into position on a plateau north of the fort. To divert attention from this movement, he ordered Porter to move his gunboats upriver to engage Fort Hindman's guns. Shortly after 5:30 p.m., Porter sent the ironclads Louisville, Baron de Kalb, and Cincinnati upriver to within four hundred yards of the fort. As soon as these became engaged, Porter also sent the light draft vessels Lexington and Black Hawk to throw in shrapnel and rifled shell. Finally, he ordered the Rattler to steam past the fort and enfilade it. A fierce duel ensued in which the Rattler sustained severe damage from Confederate guns and drifted back into an abatis that Dunnington had placed in the river opposite the Post. The fight continued until after dark, when superior Union firepower finally succeeded in silencing most of the fort's guns. McClernand continued to deploy his troops throughout the evening of the tenth.

Gary D. Joiner contends that the campaign was important to both the Union army and navy in the course of the war and afterward, altering the political landscape in the fall presidential elections in 1864. The campaign redirected troops originally assigned to operate in Georgia during the pivotal Atlanta campaign, thus delaying the end of the war by weeks or even months, and it forced the navy to refocus its inland or “brown water” naval tactics. The Red River Campaign ushered in deep resentment toward the repatriation of the State of Louisiana after the war ended. Profound consequences included legal, political, and sociological issues that surfaced in Congressional hearings as a result of the Union defeat.

The efforts of the Confederates to defend northern Louisiana have been largely ignored. Their efforts at building an army and preparations to trap the union naval forces before the campaign began have been all but lost in the literature of the Civil War. Joiner’s book will remedy this lack of historical attention.

Replete with in-depth coverage on the geography of the region, the Congressional hearings after the Campaign, and the Confederate defenses in the Red River Valley, Through the Howling Wilderness will appeal to Civil War historians and buffs alike.

Gary D. Joiner is assistant professor of history at Louisiana State University in Shreveport where he is director of the Red River Regional Studies Center. He is also owner of Precision Cartographics in Shreveport. Dr. Joiner is the co-editor of No Pardons to Ask, nor Apologies to Make and the author of One Damn Blunder from Beginning to End: The Red River Campaign of 1864, winner of the 2004 Albert Castel Award and the 2005 A.M. Pate, Jr., Award.

CRY HAVOC

THE CROOKED ROAD TO THE CIVIL WAR, 1861

By Nelson D. Lankford

In early March 1861, civil war loomed. By late April, Americans had begun to kill their fellow citizens. Cry Havoc! recounts in riveting detail the events that divided the states and reveals how quirks of timing, character, and place all conspired to transform the nation into a battlefield.

Nelson Lankford, author of Richmond Burning, chronicles the eight critical weeks that began with Lincoln’s inauguration through the explosion at Fort Sumter and the president’s fateful response to it. Before Fort Sumter, the balance could have tipped in favor of a peaceful resolution. This book addresses the many mighthave-beens, both familiar and lesser known. What if Lincoln had delayed the proclamation calling for troops? Could wavering Unionists in the upper South have held the line?

A must read for all who wish to understand the birth of the modern United States of America, Cry Havoc! probes the fateful series of events and analyzes each of the failed possibilities that hindsight affords.

SEE YOU TUESDAY NIGHT 

GOD BLESS AMERICA