October 3, 2012 Speaker Biography

Speaker:	Roger Arthur
Topic:	“1862:  The Turning Point”
Time:	7:00 PM
Place:	West Chester Borough Hall, Gay Street

Our Speaker this month is none other than Roger Arthur, a long-time members and valuable contributor to the Round Table.  His topic will be “1862:  The Turning Point.”

Roger has been a student of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln his entire life. He has traveled extensively across America visiting most of the major Civil War and Lincoln sites including the

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. He has attended numerous forums, symposia, lectures and classes about Lincoln and the War. He has been a member of the

Brandywine Valley Civil War Round Table since 1990 and served as program chairman for many years. In addition to his interest in the Rebellion and Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Arthur has a great interest in America's youngest, most dynamic, most decorated, most energetic and popular president, Theodore Roosevelt. He has developed a first person portrayal of "Colonel Roosevelt" for audiences of all types.

Mr. Arthur holds both a Bachelor's and Master's degree in history and regularly lectures on historical topics to a variety of groups, libraries, colleges, and historic clubs in the East. He teaches Modern American History at Bishop Shanahan High School and courses at the Chester County Night School.  Mr. Arthur is married and lives with his wife, Leslie, in historic Chadds Ford. They have six children and nine grandchildren.

BVCWRT October Rear Ranks Entry

From the Rear Ranks:  

Greetings Members!  It was great to see all of you and also to see quite a few new faces.  A few items you may have noticed, we have setup a new blog and Facebook page to communicate information for our monthly meetings.  If anyone would like to post anything please send to me and I can get it up there.  I was lucky enough to go to the Antietam for the 150^th events.  It was a great time and I was able to meet Dr. Bud Robertson and see Ed Bears speak.  This month we are lucky to have Roger Arthur speaking about "1862: The Turning Point", it should be great.  As in the past I have added an article that was published about 150 years ago regarding one New York Times reporter’s reaction to the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.    

Respectively,

Chip Crowe
President,
Brandywine Valley Civil War Round Table

The President's Proclamation.

September 23, 1862

There has been no more important and far reaching document ever issued since the foundation of this Government than the proclamation of President LINCOLN concerning Slavery and slaves, published this morning…

The wisdom of the step taken -- we refer at present to that clause in the document which declares free the slaves of rebel States after the 1st of January -- is unquestionable; its necessity, indisputable. It has been declared time and again by President LINCOLN that as soon as this step became a necessity, he should adopt it. Its adoption now is not a confession that the military means of suppressing the great rebellion have proved a failure; but simply that there is a point at which any other legitimate appliances that can be called in, shall also be availed of. Slavery is an element of strength to the rebels if left untouched; it will assuredly prove an element of weakness -- it may be of total destruction -- to them and their cause, when we make such use of it and its victims as lies in our power. 

From now till the 1st of January -- the day when this proclamation will take effect -- is little over three months. What may happen between now and then, in the progress of the war, it is hard to say. We earnestly hope, however, that by that time, the rebellion will be put down by the military hand, and that the terrible element of slave-insurrection may not be invoked. If, by that day, the rebel army be overthrown, and their Capital captured; and, if the slaveholding rebels still prove malignant, irrepressible, and, as in the Southwest, disorganizers and marauders, then let that which Vice-President STEPHENS called the corner-stone of the Southern Confederacy be knocked from under it, and see whether the whole fabric of rebellion will not necessarily tumble to the ground.

 

 

Thanks hope to see you all on October 3rd!!