Everyone is welcome at our monthly meetings.

Attend the dinner and presentation, or just the presentation.

Recordings of many of the meetings are available for a small charge, click here for a printable list of Recorded Meetings

We meet September through June, generally on the second Friday evening of each month. See list of meeting dates and speakers below for our 2011-2012 program year.

Our meetings take place at the
Mart Plaza Holiday Inn
350 N. Orleans Street,
Chicago, IL 60654
Validated hotel parking is $12
Click here for a map and directions

5:30 pm Cash Bar
6:30 pm Dinner
7:30 pm Presentation

Dinner is $45 per person – There is always a choice of entrée.
(Entrée options are listed below.)
Presentation only is $10 per person.
Payable at the door, cash or check.

Please make your reservation in advance by contacting us at (630)460-1865 or DinnerReservations@ChicagoCWRT.org.

When you make your dinner reservation, please be sure to indicate your entrée choice.

Feb. 10, 2012

Harry Bulkeley Harry Bulkeley on:
“U.S. Grant: “I Propose to Fight it Out” “

Ulysses S. Grant demonstrated what might be called the Peter Principle in reverse: he couldn’t handle small jobs, but give him a huge task like saving the Union, and he performed marvelously well.

Grant’s story is one of great abilities, hidden and undiscovered until a vast war brought them out. And not merely abilities as a general. His memoirs, completed just prior to his death, are rightly regarded as one of the best memoirs ever written by a historical figure.

“I Intend to Fight It Out” is a oneman show presented by Harry Bulkeley as General Ulysses S. Grant. It opens with Grant working on his memoirs shortly before his death. He narrates episodes in his life, changing uniforms as the story unfolds. Bulkeley says he tries to provide an insight into Grant as a man. “For too many people, General Grant has become a caricature. My presentation tries to explain more about the man himself. He was during his life perhaps the most admired living American of the 19th century. I want the audience to know why.”

Harry Bulkeley and his wife Barbara live in an old Victorian house a block and a half from where he was born in Galesburg, IL. Five years ago he retired after serving as a Circuit Court judge for 24 years. Since retirement, they have spent time traveling, including visiting their three daughters who live in New York City, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco.

Judge Bulkeley has always been interested in the Civil War. About fifteen years ago he developed an interest in Grant. “I grew a beard for the first reenactment I ever attended—as a Confederate!” When I got home, I was reading a biography of the general when I noticed the physical resemblance.” After portraying Grant at several national events, Bulkeley appeared as the title character in “Ulysses Grant: Warrior- President” for the PBS series American Experience. A few years later he was in “Sherman’s March” on The History Channel. This spring, he will be Grant in the new film for the visitors’ center at the Shiloh National Battlefield Park.

Entrée choices are:
Chicken Picatta
Baked Orange Roughy
Vegetarian or Fruit Plate
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For our 2011-2012 program year, we proudly welcome these outstanding speakers:

September 9, 2011       Synopsis        
Bruce Allardice

"Baseball and the Civil War"

October 14, 2011           Synopsis        
Nora Titone
"My Thoughts be Bloody". The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth

November 11, 2011        
Gail Stephens
Jubal's in the Valley, Summer, 1864

December 9, 2011        
James Robertson Jr.
The Untold Civil War

January 13, 2012            
Parker Hills
Chickamauga

February 10, 2012          
Harry Bulkeley
U. S. Grant: "I Propose to Fight it Out"

March 9, 2012               
A. Wilson Greene
Nevins-Freeman Address

April 13, 2012                      
Marshall Krolick
Riding for the Union: 8th Illinois Cavalry Troopers

May 18, 2012                    
Bruce Holden Reid
TBA

June 8, 2012
Dennis Frye
Antietam

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