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News08/11/14 - My weekend with Bob Macomber Civil War Tour Around Useppa Island During this past weekend Pat and I were privileged to have a private guided tour given by one of the CWRT's favorite author, Robert Macomber. We were on the water in a high powered motor boat from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon.
The chart above shows the area of Pine Island Sound of interest to students of the Civil War. Readers of Bob's historical novels in the Honor Series will recognize the islands of Useppa, Patricio, and Mondongo. I would like to point out the expanse of deep water, shown in white, running from Charlotte Harbor in the upper left to Captiva Pass in the lower right. This is called the swash channel, a natural carved deep water channel. The blockade runners preferred the swash channel to the main channel, at Boca Grande, just off the map to the left of Cayo Costa. This is because the East Gulf Blockading Squadron positioned large gunships at the mouth of Boca Grande. Large ships could not easily patrol Captiva Pass so this was the exit of choice for the runners.
01/10/14 - This article appeared in the Sun Sentinel on January 5, 2014:
History buffs discuss Civil War at
monthly meetings
Civil War Round Table of Palm Beach
County members discuss war
By Attiyya Anthony, Sun Sentinel
January 5, 2014
It's been more than 150 years since the smoke cleared on the
battlefields where Union and Confederate soldiers charged at each other.
But the stories live on at the Civil War Round Table of
Palm Beach County, where members are always interested in
learning something new about America's defining conflict.
"It's amazing the interest that's out there in the Civil War," said
Gerridine LaRovere, president of the club. "It has not ceased to
interest people."
The group is one of the eight round tables in the state. The Palm Beach
round table meetings are held at the Scottish Masonic Lodge in
Lake Worth on the second Wednesday of each
month.
There are guest speakers, book discussions, question and answer
sessions, artifact displays, role playing and sometimes an actual round
table.
"Every meeting is different,"
LaRovere said. "Some like to hear about the battles. I like the human
interest side of it — to read the letters people wrote, hear about
brothers fighting against each other or the cousins that found each
other after the war."
At this Wednesday's meeting,
LaRovere will act as a journalist interviewing member William McEachern,
who will be acting as Daniel Edgar Sickles.
Sickles was a Union general,
lawyer, alleged murderer, womanizer and creator of the "temporary
insanity" defense.
"The interesting thing about the
Civil War Round Table is that everyone gets something out of every
meeting," she said.
The round table discussions are a
big draw and can get pretty heated, especially when talking about the
true cause of the Civil War.
Howie Krizer, 81, a member of the
club for 10 years, strongly believes the war started over state's rights
and then evolved into a battle over slavery.
"We're the greatest country in
the world, but sometimes we do stupid things," he said.
Krizer has his own "War Room" and
can rattle off history facts at the drop of a dime, but knows that there
is more to learn.
"It's impossible to know
everything about the Civil War," he said. "It's impossible to learn all
the trauma, intrigue and sadness of the Civil War."
That's why he keeps coming back
to the meetings — and plus, he loves hearing the battle stories.
"It's just amazing that over
625,000 Union and Confederate troops died in the Civil War," he said.
"With no planes, no machine guns, no hand grenades. They all just stood
up, lined up and shot at each other."
Krizer has a library with over
3,000 history books and is constantly reminding his children and
grandchildren of battles and wars.
"History always repeats itself,"
he said. "The only thing that changes are the dates."
aanthony@sunsentinel.com
If you go: The group meets at 7
pm on the second Wednesday of every month at the Scottish Rite Masonic
Center, 2000 North D Street, Lake Worth, FL 33460
Copyright © 2014, South Florida
Sun-Sentinel
08/03/12 - Member Sandy Reiss is an artist who works in watercolors. She sent me a few images from her collection for your enjoyment:
06/29/11 - Webmaster Robert Schuldenfrei announces that old issues of the newsletter, Haversacks and Saddlebags, are on our website. When completed there will be back issues beginning with January, 2009. They are being stored in HTML such that people worldwide can search our site for information about the American Civil War. To see how this works try a Google search for "Lincoln and the $5.00 bill". If you use the quotes you will get right to it. Our website has not reached the status of world-class so if you omit the quotes our reference will be deep down into the Google results.
08/20/10 - The Coastal Observer ran our first publicity article. This is just the first of many pieces we will see in the coming months.
07/15/10 - Gerridine LaRovere, President of the Civil War Round Table of Palm Beach County, announced today that the organization has a website. Since you are reading this page you probably know that our URL is: www.CivilWarRoundTablePalmBeach.org. Ms. LaRovere said that we have been wanting to establish a home on the Internet for some time, but just have not been able to realize that dream until now. Please visit this website often as we will be placing new items on the site over the next few months. Date changed: 08/11/14 |
We
covered a good expanse of Pine Island Sound during our seven hour tour.
Bob filled the time with his historical narration for which you all know
he is quite famous. At lunch time we put in to Cabbage Key.
It is there, so local rumor has it, that Jimmy Buffett was inspired to
write Cheeseburger in Paradise. Naturally, I ordered a
cheeseburger. The inside walls of the restaurant were papered with
dollar bills, which served as "mad money" for the local fishermen if
they were down on their luck and need a buck to pay their bar bill.
Every year this establishment "harvests" about $8,000. for charity while
still maintaining over $70,000. of wallpaper.
12/08/10
- Robert
N. Macomber, award winning author and Civil War historian, spoke to the
CWRT at our annual Holiday Party on December 8, 2010. Mr. Macomber
is a regular speaker at this end of the year event. He said it was
probably the eighth time he has spoken, but is beginning to loose count.
The topic this year was Key West and "the War," as everyone in this room
knows what war he was talking about.
