Civil War Buffs Form Round Table to Discuss Their Passion

On the second Tuesday of each month, a small group gathers in a Van Nuys bookstore to discuss warfare.

They are not, however, hashing over any of the current world hot spots, but instead are fixated on events of 100 years ago.

For this disparate band of avid historians, the Civil War is an addiction. They gather to discuss everything from Union Maj. Robert Anderson’s surrender to Brig. Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard at Ft. Sumter to the end of the war when, at Wilmer McLean’s home at Appomattox Court House, Robert E. Lee, impeccably attired in a full dress uniform, surrendered to a muddied and disheveled Ulysses S. Grant.

The group started at Book Grinders about five months ago, the brainchild of two longtime Civil War buffs, Russell Kean and Steve Phenow.

Phenow, a writer with a degree in history, asked Kean if he could organize a Civil War round table.

“There are groups meeting in Long Beach and Los Angeles, but nothing in the Valley,” Phenow said.

The San Fernando Civil War Roundtable was born.

“Phenow was the perfect person to start the group because he is so active in so many Civil War historical activities,” said Kean, a Civil War buff for about 45 years.

Phenow, 39, is perhaps best known in the Los Angeles area for his miniatures, which are used to recreate Civil War battles at the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum in Wilmington.

“I remember getting interested in the war when I was about 10 years old,” Phenow remembers. “Life magazine, in about 1962, ran some reconstruction pictures of battles and I was hooked.

“By 1982, when I was living in San Diego, I had joined a group called the Second Virginia Regiment that held re-enactment battles with other Civil War units at Big Oak Ranch in El Cajon,” he says.

When he moved to Los Angeles in the mid-80s, he began re-enacting battles with friends using miniatures of soldiers he created. Phenow showed some of the miniatures to Marge O’Brien, the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum director in 1990. Her enthusiasm over his skilled craftsmanship led to the Special Studies in Battles project that Phenow still heads at the museum.

“We do battle re-enactments for special groups, but the public is often welcome,” said Phenow, a North Hollywood resident. “If people are interested, they can call the museum to find out when the next re-enactment will be.”

He says everyone is welcome to join the Book Grinders group. “All you have to have is an interest in the Civil War.” The next meeting is at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Jimmy Dunn, a Reseda resident and retired Gas. Co. employee, will be there.

Dunn’s interest in the Civil War started in a dentist’s Hollywood office in the early 1950s when he was nervously leafing through magazines trying to take his mind off the dreaded drill.

An article in a now-forgotten periodical caught his eye and suspended dread for a while as he read that many of the most learned scholars in Britain’s esteemed universities of Cambridge and Oxford considered the speeches of Abraham Lincoln to be some of the finest prose ever written in the English language.

“That article led me to start reading Lincoln’s words and then to want to learn more about the Civil War, Lincoln’s biggest challenge,” said Dunn.

He even named one of his sons Lawrence Lincoln Dunn.

Dunn says his studies have led him to many encounters, one of the most interesting with a man he met at the Lincoln Library in Redlands.

“I had been sitting reading a treasured old book called “The Letters of a Confederate General,” when I noticed a gentleman looking at me and the book,” Dunn said.

“I asked him if he was interested in looking at the book when I had finished, and he smiled and said that he would. He told me that he had come all the way from Cambridge, Mass., to see it,” Dunn remembers.

“Later, over coffee, I learned that he was Samuel Eliot Morison.” The utility company employee and Morison, a renowned naval historian and Harvard scholar, had a good talk, Dunn said.

Dunn’s wife Mary doesn’t share the same passion, but she is the owner of some Civil War relics, including the dress sword and commission papers of her ancestor, Justin Turner, who fought for the Union.

Turner, according to Dunn, was wounded in the battle of Gettysburg, and died on a troop train taking him back to his native New York.

Another round-table enthusiast is aircraft parts buyer Bill Culver of Valley Village. In 1992, after inheriting some money, Culver spent several months touring about 40 Civil War battlefields.

“For a longtime Civil War buff like me, it was a dream of a lifetime,” says Culver, whose travels took him through much of Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, the Carolinas and Alabama.

“One of the most interesting trips was the Colonial Parkway which links many areas of American history including Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown, where Cornwallis surrendered to the American troops.”

He expects memories of that trip to stay with him for a lifetime, and shares brochures and pamphlets from the visit with round-table members. Culver says most of the group members are men, but women have begun to attend too.

“I think many of them are interested in learning more about their genealogy. They’re looking for relatives who fought in the war,” he says.

Parks Event Offers Chance for Stardom

If your newest ambition is a part on television’s “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” head out to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area on Sunday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

There will be a drawing for just such an adventure at the “March for Parks, Head for the Hills” event sponsored by the National Park Service.

Everyone who attends will have a chance to win the part by way of a drawing, said Jean Bray of the Park Service.

If you just want to take a walk, ride a pony, look at the exhibits or listen to the stories of Charlie Cook, a chief of the Chumash, that’s all right too, Bray said.

Proceeds will pay for bus transportation and on-site naturalist programs for inner city and local children. The event will be held at Paramount Ranch, where the television show is taped.

Artist to Reveal the ‘Nature of Naval Uniform’

We often get news releases from CalArts in Valencia about its much-lauded productions that include all kinds of arts and artworks. But a recent release about Rob Calentine’s Saturday production called “Suiting a Sailor” has us in the head-scratching mode.

It says that “Calentine’s work will unveil the absolute truth about the homoerotic nature of the naval uniform.”

It will be unveiled at 8 p.m. at the Hollywood Moguls Live Theatre-Gallery, should you be inclined to check it out.

Study Tour to Follow Tracks of Wild Horses

Ron Wechsler, an associate instructor of animal sciences at Pierce College and a driving force behind the school’s annual rodeo, has come up with a new way to entice people to saddle up.

Wechsler will be leading a four-day UCLA Extension study tour tracking wild horses in the Pizona area of Inyo National Forest beginning June 4.

Participants will ride out by horseback from base camp each day to observe, photograph and examine the social behavior of mustangs.

Sissies need not apply.

According to Wechsler, the program is limited to 20 participants who will enjoy up to six hours of riding each day from the Rock Creek Pack Station in Bishop.

The adventure costs $545, which includes tuition, instruction, horses, tack, tents and meals.

Bring your own chiropractor.

The tour coordinator is Herbert London, who owns the Bishop pack station. London has been active in training government personnel for wilderness packing situations. He says early June is an ideal time to track mustangs. “We’re apt to see foals at this time, anywhere from one day old on up.”

Overheard

“I have my new computer, but I can’t figure out exactly how to use it. I’m waiting for my instructor to get home from Little League practice.”