Civil War historian Joan Cashin to speak at Wayne County Round Table

The next Wayne County Civil War Round Table program, which is free to attend, will be Friday, Oct. 17 at 6 p.m. at the Wayne County Historical Society schoolhouse, located on the Wayne County Historical Society campus at 546 E. Bowman St. in Wooster.

The program will feature author Joan E. Cashin, who will give a talk on her book, "War Stuff: The Struggle for Human and Environmental Resources in the American Civil War." The book focuses on the struggle between armies and civilians for the resources, human and material, necessary to wage war. This war “stuff” included the skills of white southern civilians, as well as food, timber and housing.

At first many civilians were willing to assist the armies, but the war took such a toll that they began to focus on their own survival. Both armies took what they needed from the civilian world, which ironically destroyed the South’s ability to wage war. In this fierce contest between armies and noncombatants, the civilians lost.

Cashin received her doctorate at Harvard University, and she is a professor of history at Ohio State University. She is the author or editor of six books, and her most recent book, "War Stuff," won three prizes.