THIS MONTH’S MEETING:
Post
Civil War Regiments Massacreed on the Oregon Trail
and the Modern Day Struggle to Preserve the
Battlefield
from Obscurity by Nature and Man
Presented by Steve Haack
March 26, 2008
7:15 p.m.
Gere Branch Library, 56th and Normal, Lincoln
(Board meeting at 6:30 - all are invited to attend and contribute ideas)
UPCOMING MEETINGS
(Get all of these on your calendars!):
All programs are at 7:15 p.m. and most are at the Gere Branch Library
(56th and Normal, Lincoln, Nebraska),
unless another location and/or time is stated.
April 23, 2008
To be announced
May 28, 2008
Civil War Railroads
By Professor Will Thomas
Note that meeting dates and places could change as special events may
be scheduled.
DUES
2007-2008 Dues are now
due! Please bring your check for $15.00 ($25.00 for a family
membership) to the meeting, or you may mail it to Civil War Round
Table, 1227 Lincoln Mall, Lincoln, NE, 68508. So far, forty-one
members have paid their 2007-2008 dues, with two of those being a
family membership and six new members, for a total of $635.00
collected. One member has already paid for next year! The
treasurer reports the following as having paid at this point:
Basso, Art
Bender, Wally
Clark, Reed
Dawson, Tom
Dellert, Hal
Dieckhaus, Billie Jo
Faimon, Jim
Guenzel, Bob
Guenzel, Steven E., Family
Hadley, Paul
Higgins, John
Jantzen, William
Jones, Dallas, Family
Kosch, Linda
Krumland, Gary (new member!)
Frank Landis
Lawson, Lester
Lefler, Larry (new member!)
Nelson, Neal
Nichols, Mark
Obrist, Lawrence
Oliver, Bob
Ottoson, Howard
James Owens
Peterson, Bob
Peterson, Shere (new member!)
Potter, Jim
Reagan, Mike
Reagan, Paul
Rinkevich, Tom
Rockenbach, Ron
Roelle, Wayne
Rudebusch, Merle
Schlismann, Carol (new member!)
Schnieder, Craig
Stewart, Dean B.
Stock, Darrell
Svoboda, Ron (new member!)
Wells, Dave
Woolf, John
Zalewski, Jim (new member!)
If you have paid and are not on
the list, please contact the treasurer to correct the records. If
you have not paid, please support the Civil War Round Table of Nebraska!
----------------------------------------------------------
Post Civil War Regiments Massacreed on the Oregon
Trail
and the Modern Day Struggle to Preserve the
Battlefield
from Obscurity by Nature and Man
(Information provided by Ron Rockenbach)
Speaker: Steve Haack is a
wood turning artist at a downtown Lincoln art gallery; he will make a
power point presentation with maps, photos, and soldier interview
excerpts.
In the July, 1865, Battle of Red Buttes, the Eleventh Kansas
cavalry, the Eleventh Ohio cavalry, and “galvanized Yankees” (former
Southern soldiers/prisoners) fought Northern Cheyenne and Lakota war
parties. This battle took place along the Oregon Trail,
approximately 100 miles northwest of Fort Laramie and 150 miles due
west of what would become Fort Robinson in Nebraska. The upper
branches of the North Platte River make a pronounced turn to the south
at this point and head toward their origins in Colorado.
The Eleventh Kansas has a history with
similarities to our own First Nebraska. The Kansas volunteer unit
was established early in the Civil War as an infantry regiment–they
were part of the “Army of Occupation” in Missouri and Northern
Arkansas. Its most noted engagement was at Prairie Grove.
Like the First Nebraska, the Eleventh Kansas
was converted to cavalry in August of 1863. (See Marching With
The First Nebraska, edited by our own Jim Potter, page 220, October 29,
1863.) The Eleventh Kansas served in Missouri until December of
1864, when they were sent from Fort Riley, Kansas, to Fort Kearney for
duties to guard forts, roads, ranches, wagon trains, supply trains, and
the soldiers and settlers with these endeavors.
At about this same time, the First Nebraska was
withdrawn from north central Arkansas at the beginning of June, 1864,
and reassigned to the Platte River valley by the end of 1864.
This is the desperate, courageous, and tragic
story of soldiers, settlers, and Indian warriors in the fight for land
in the West. White soldiers who had survived the Civil War were
now fighting Indian warriors who thought they had peace treaties to
preserve their culture. This specific battle and the men on each
side that fought it would be a precursor to Col. Custer and Crazy Horse
eleven years later and a few hundred miles to the north in Montana.
Post Script: In Marching With The First Nebraska, at pages
306, the epilogue paraphrases Scherneckau’s entries of supply wagons
for General Patrick E. Connor’s Powder River expedition from Fort
Laramie against the Indians on July 30. This is less than a week
after the Red Buttes massacre and the Powder River Valley is
immediately north of that battlefield.
Link to website: Red
Buttes Battlefield
----------------------------------------------------------
Hope you can all come
on the
26th!
