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Kalamazoo Civil War Round Table
Dedicated to preserving the History and Stories of The American Civil War
The next KCWRT Meeting....March 20 at 7:00pm
This month’s speaker is John Urschel
His topic will be Colonel Orlando Moore: American Hero
Colonel Orlando Moore was born at Wilkes Barre, PA in 1827 and moved with his family to Schoolcraft, MI when he was a young boy. He enlisted in the US Army in 1856 and was stationed in California when the war broke out. He came back east and was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 13th Michigan Infantry. He resigned after a dispute with his commanding officer and was soon appointed Colonel of the newly formed 25th Michigan Infantry. He was in command of the Union forces at Tebbs Bend, KY on July 4, 1863 when Confederate Colonel John Hunt Morgan arrived with a much larger force and demanded that Moore surrender. Moore refused to surrender on the 4th of July and his men successfully repelled numerous attacks until Morgan finally withdrew.
John Urschel holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Masters of Arts in Public History from Wayne State University in Fairborn, OH. He is the author of the Michigan Boys in Blue series of sourcebooks and Michigan at Andersonville, Indiana at Andersonville, and Michigan’s Dead at Gettysburg. He is also the author of Life After Andersonville. This is an amazing compilation of the postwar lives of the Michigan survivors of Andersonville.
John is the former Records Manager and Archivist for South Bend and St. Joseph County, Indiana Records and was Information Manager for the City of Kalamazoo from 1999-2009. During that time he produced a documentary DVD called Kalamazoo: 1884 and authored a book on the history of Kalamazoo parks published by the Friends of Recreation back in 2008 or so. He has a facebook page Michigan Boys in Blue.
March 7th
1862 - Union General Samuel Curtis defeated Confederate General Earl Van Dorn at the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern), Arkansas. Confederate General Ben McCulloch and his immediate successor (General James McIntosh) were both killed in the battle. The Confederate retreated minutes after the deaths of their leaders.
U.S. Civil War Quote:
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth...could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years... If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
- Abraham Lincoln
KCWRT Activities
Albert Castel Book Award
Historical Preservation Efforts
Albert Castel Book Award
To stimulate new scholarship on the Civil War, every other year KCWRT presents the Albert Castel Book Award to the author of the best recent book on the Civil War in the Western Theater.
WMU History Day 2023
Historical Preservation Efforts
Albert Castel Book Award
To help promote local interest in the Civil War, KCWRT awards an annual prize for the best Civil War-related entry in the Kalamazoo District Michigan History Day Competition.
Historical Preservation Efforts
Historical Preservation Efforts
Historical Preservation Efforts
KCWRT has conducted fund raisers to support numerous preservation efforts over the years. Generally, this is in the form of a donation to a preservation fund organized to save a specific Civil War site from development.