Greetings to all...

Whether Program Director Roger Heller planned it this way or not, there’s been a discernable theme to our last two meetings of the Roundtable: Confederate diaries—albeit from quite different circumstance. In September, following a fascinating Show & Tell from Warren Wilde’s Civil War family tree, Professor Michael K. Shaffer of Kennesaw, Georgia, shared the late-in-life remembrance of a veteran of the 1st Virginia Cavalry. Thomas Colley had been shot and left for dead at Kelly’s Ford in March of '63, recovering in time to get a foot shot off at Haw’s Shop at the end of Mary, 1864. Suffering post-war from what would today be termed PTSD, Colley would credit the love of a good woman and, through her, the church, for helping him put his life back together; whereupon the sobered-up old Confederate journaled the remarkable remembrance edited by Shaffer: In Memory of Self and Comrades: Thomas Wallace Colley’s Recollections of Civil War.

At last week’s meeting, which featured the presentation of Cal Doucette Award to Ron Rock, Professional Educator Jan Croom shared another southern diary, this from a Georgia youth named LeRoy Wiley Gresham, published under the title The War Outside My Window. Disabled when his leg was crushed in childhood, young Gresham started his diary in 1860, writing almost daily entries through 1865, when his life ended concurrent with the fall of the Confederacy. Jan Croon is a first-class story teller and the full house seemed to be hanging on every word, rooting for this bright doomed kid, knowing it wasn’t going to end well.

Of course, rooting for a doomed disabled teenager is a long way from rooting for the doomed cause, dear to his heart. As told by Jan Croon, LeRoy had an older, able-bodied brother, who, as the son of a wealthy, slaveholding family, avoided service in the first years of the war. As Thomas Colley might have attested, it was indeed, a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.

Those who weren’t with us for our evening with Jan Croon and LeRoy Wiley Gresham missed something special—but then I could say as much for Michael Shaffer’s presentation and pretty much every other speaker who has graced our gatherings. I do hope you’ll mark these fourth Thursdays on your calendars and make every attempt to be with us. Having given a public speech of sorts every weekend for 44 years, I know your presence will be an encouragement to our guests.

Don’t mark the fourth Thursday of November, though! That would Thanksgiving, so we’re moving our meeting up a week, to the 21st—the third Thursday. Our December gathering is the big holiday event on the 5th, so no fourth Thursday in December, either.

If you’re ever confused about what’s going on when, check out our Civil War Roundtable of Gettysburg website: www.gettysburgcwrt.org and/or the Facebook Page. Weather-related cancellations will be posted in both places, as well.

One last thing: At our most recent Roundtable Board meeting, it was suggested our group be more intentional about having a presence in the Gettysburg Times. I said I’d be happy to fold that into my presidential responsibilities. The folks at the paper have been very kind and the plan is to have a Roundtable article included on the third Saturday of each month, the first having already been published. It is a privilege to serve as President of this outstanding organization.