CINCINNATI
 CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE
Serving Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana Since 1956

Next Meeting: Thursday, September 16, 2010

Speaker: Robert E. L. Krick, Richmond National Battlefield Park

Topic: "Bombproof Officers" or Backbone of the Army? A Look at Staff Officers in the Army of Northern Virginia

We kick off the 2010-2011 season of the Cincinnati Civil War Round Table with a visit from historian and author Robert E. L. Krick, who makes his first appearance before our organization. Mr. Krick has lived or worked on Civil War battlefields almost continuously since 1972. He grew up on the Chancellorsville battlefield near Fredericksburg, and graduated from Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg with a degree in history. He has worked in various historical capacities at several battlefields, including Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana and Manassas Battlefield in Virginia. Since 1991 he has been an historian on the staff at Richmond National Battlefield Park. Mr. Krick is widely published on Civil War topics. His first book was a unit history -- The Fortieth Virginia Infantry (1985). He has also contributed many Civil War articles, including some published in books edited by historians Gary Gallagher and Peter Carmichael. In 2003 the University of North Carolina Press published Krick’s biographical register of the Army of Northern Virginia’s staff officers entitled Staff Officers in Gray. Robert is now at work on a study of the Battle of Gaines's Mill. Besides his writing activities, Mr. Krick has been heavily involved in the preservation of Civil War battlefields. Of particular note has been his heavy involvement in the recent Civil War Preservation Trust acquisitions at Glendale (Frayser’s Farm) battlefield, one of the defining battles of the Seven Days Campaign.

The most famous soldiers in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia were men of the line—generals and field officers. Their colleagues on staff duty are less well known. Prominent memoirists like Henry Kyd Douglas and Moxley Sorrel have told the story of the staffers well, but somewhat superficially, leaving the duties and personal background of the more than 2000 men who comprised the army’s staff corps obscured. Research into the lives of these men shows them to have been a remarkably well educated and literate body of officers.

G. Moxley Sorrel, Chief of Staff, First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. Photo from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxley_Sorrel

Mr. Krick’s talk will answer some of the basic questions about the staff corps. In addition to briefly outlining the various duties (aide-de-camp, adjutant general, inspector general, ordnance officer, etc.), it will address their role in the army. What was the difference between the general staff and a general’s staff? What made a good staff officer? How did generals like Lee and Jackson use their staffs? And more importantly, were they effective?