Adjutant’s Call - February 2022
Circular Memorandum #533 - February 2022
“U.S. Grant and Kentucky” Presented by Dr. Curt Fields
Meet Our Speaker – Dr. Curt Fields
Dr. Fields has portrayed General and President Grant in 22 states as he travels the nation presenting his portrayal of General and President Ulysses S. Grant. As a Living Historian, Dr. Fields portrayed General Grant at the 150th Sesquicentennial observations of: Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House, VA. He portrays General Grant in the Visitor Center film that is shown at Appomattox Court House National Historic Park. He was featured as General Grant, and as a Grant authority, in the Discovery Channel three-part documentary series “How Booze Built America”.
Dr. Fields portrays General Grant, giving his life story, on the Civil War Trust website in the 1in4 series of biographies and significant places and events the distinguished Civil War Trust has established. Curt is also a frequent contributor to The Civil War News (monthly Civil War newspaper) and was the recipient of the 2015 Grady McWhiney Award of Merit (for significant contributions to the scholarship and preservation of Civil War History. He appeared as General Grant on the National Geographic Television series “Diggers” and was featured as General Grant in the Visitors Center films shown at Appomattox National Historic Park and the Dover Hotel in Fort Donelson National Battlefield. Curt has been featured on four national magazine covers and being the only Living Historian to be featured on two national magazine covers at the same time and for the same event: the Appomattox 150th in 2015 (pictured: “The Banner” and “The Camp Chase Gazette”. He has been selected as the official Grant for the U. S. Grant Boyhood Home Association in Georgetown, Ohio. Dr. Fields portrayed President Grant for the opening and dedication of the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library at Mississippi State University on November 30th, 2017. He portrays President Grant in the film shown at Grant’s Tomb in New York City which premiered in December 2021.
Dr. Fields served as a Memphis, TN, Police Officer and was an MPD Hostage negotiator and he received the Life-Saving medal from the City of Memphis for actions in the line of duty. Dr. Fields researches and reads extensively about General Grant to deliver an accurate persona of the General. His presentations are in first person, quoting from General Grant’s Memoirs; articles and letters the General wrote, statements he made in interviews or wrote himself, and first-person accounts of people who knew the General or were with him and witnessed him during events. He is the same height and body style as General Grant and, therefore, presents a convincing, true-to-life image of the man as he really looked.
“U.S. Grant and Kentucky”
Kentucky looms large in the story of Ulysses S. Grant, whether History notes it so or not. He went to Paducah in early September 1861 the day after he arrived at Cairo, Illinois, to take command of his new (and vaguely determined) military district/command. This was done on the word of a spy. Grant acted with alacrity to move on Paducah before Leonidas Polk could march on it and take the valuable river port for Southern control. He also was warily watching Polk on the bluffs of Columbus, Kentucky, when he moved on Belmont, Missouri, in the first combat he personally commanded. He won that particular battle ('though some folks say he didn't, but we'll look at it...). Grant left Kentucky behind early on, but his time there and in the area was crucial to his, and the Union, war experience.
Round Table Member Bruce Loveall Passes Away
Bruce Allen Loveall was born March 29, 1957, in Taylor County, Kentucky to the late Vaughn Wesley Loveall, JR and Florence Montgomery Loveall. He was formerly of Green County. He departed this life Friday, December 31, 2021, at his home in West Point, Kentucky, having attained the age of sixty-four years, nine months and two days.
He had made a profession of faith in Christ and was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Sulphur Well, Kentucky. He was a Computer Software Technologist. Besides being a member of our Round Table, Bruce was affiliated and participated with the Fort Duffield Park and Historic Site: Commander Fort Duffield Camp 1, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Department of Kentucky, Fort Duffield Heritage Committee, West Point, Kentucky, Historian and Webmaster. Friends of Fort Duffield: Tebbs Bend Battlefield Association, Campbellsville, Kentucky. Long standing member and Webmaster. Former President. Kentucky Military History Preservation Alliance, formerly known as Kentucky Civil War Sites Association. Bruce represented Tebbs Bend Battlefield Association and Fort Duffield. Bruce was a member: former President of the Green County Historical Society, Louisville Genealogical Society Ancestral Trails Historical Society, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Meade County History Museum, Brandenburg, Kentucky, Painted Stone Settlers, Shelbyville, Kentucky. Governor Isaac Shelby Chapter SAR, Middletown, KY. Sons of the American Revolution (active participant). Member and Webmaster Weimaraner Club of Greater Louisville.
He is survived by two brothers and one sister: Barry Loveall of Orem, Utah, Byron Loveall and his wife Jill of Sandy, Utah and Brenda Underwood and her husband Melvin of Greensburg, his domestic partner: Constance D. Morris of West Point, Kentucky, 14 nieces and nephews: Jessica Davis and her husband Jacob, Lane Booth, Brenton Booth, Nikki Booth and Austin Booth, Sydney Carlberg, Maddie Underwood, Ryan Loveall, Jones Loveall, Maggie Loveall and Cairo Loveall, Auston Mead, Tonya Underwood and her significant other Brandon Cox, Kim Dziabula and her husband Tomasz, several great nieces and nephews, plus a host of other relatives and friends.
Bruce was buried at the Montgomery Cemetery on January 10. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the family and friends of Bruce. He will be missed.
“When Their Country Called”
From the Emerging Civil War Website by Kevin Pawlak
West Point’s Class of 1846 is its most famous of the pre-Civil War era. Perhaps a close second could be the Class of 1854, which included 46 graduates. Of those 46, 37 fought in the Civil War: 23 for the United States and 14 for the Confederacy. Some of the better-known members of the class include Benjamin F. Davis, George Washington Custis Lee, Stephen D. Lee, John Pegram, William Dorsey Pender, J.E.B. Stuart, and Stephen Weed. No other prewar West Point class lost more members in the Civil War than the 1854 class—12 were killed or mortally wounded. Ironic then that the class graduates selected as their motto, “When Our Country Calls.” The phrase adorned their class rings alongside a hand wielding a sword. At the time of their graduation, fractures were visible between the northern and southern sections of the country, but a civil war was not yet a foregone conclusion. Less than seven years after their graduation and commission into the United States Army, the graduates of the Class of 1854 had to decide which country was calling. Many found one another on opposite sides of many Civil War battlefields.
The above picture has three notables from the class of 1854. On the left is G.W. Custis Lee and on the right is Stephen D. Lee. The person standing in the center is one of the most famous of all Civil War soldiers. Do you recognize him without his beard? The reveal will be in next month’s newsletter.