Ed Bearss in Dreamland: Dennison, Ohio in the Summer

On June 25, 2011, Stamp Guys Mike, Jamie and Brian got their Saturday chores done early, and met in the early afternoon for a trip from Columbus to Dennison, Ohio (in the Tuscarawas River valley, and not to Denison University in Granville, Ohio) to hear the great Ed Bearss, who was scheduled to speak at 6:00 pm in Dennison on "The Hero of Little Round Top." Tim, Pete and Dave had all attempted to line things up to go, but Pete (who had to work on Saturday) had decided to go on the next day (Sunday) to hear Ed give a different talk. Dave had gotten confused between Denison and Dennison, and had not allocated enough time to get his chores finished at home, so had to beg off. Tim and gone back & forth, and had eventually told me he couldn't go.  And then, when we were about 45 minutes outside of Columbus, Tim sent a text to Mike telling Mike that Tim had decided to go, and was coming with his friend Becky (who none of the rest of the Stamp Guys had met).

I drove my Lincoln MKX east on Route 70 and then north on Route 77, until getting off near Port Washington and travelling northeast up the river valley.  I had been through this area in 2010 when Tim, Pete and I visited Gnadehutten and Uhrichsville (see Stamp Guys Blog entry entitled September 12 Trip to Eastern Ohio: LST, Custer and Massacres dated November 21, 2010), and I was even more impressed by its beauty this time.  The lush valley was filled with tidy little villages like Port Washington, prosperous farms, nice bridges and the sparkling waters of the Tuscarawas (pronounced "Tusk-A-Roar-Us). As we drove past Gnadehutten, I told the guys we would stop on the way back.

We arrived at Dennison, Ohio at about 5:00 pm, with very meagre directions on where to go. However, as we drove down a main feeder street, we couldn't help but be impressed by the clean & neat nature of the small town, with streets bearing names such as "Lincoln" and "Grant" and "Sherman." We guessed right on a turn, and ended up in the downtown area, and found the address for the speech, which turned out to be a Presbyterian Church. Since we were early, we found a parking lot and then began to look around.

The entire downtown are had been turned into a street carnival, with Italian sausage vendors, a beer tent and an area set aside for shows by the local talent.  In addition, we noticed that there were sandbags stacked up on the corners to make them look like machine gun nests.  And there was a flat railroad boxcar on a rail line that had a German MG42 machine gun set up on it, with camouflage and the like.  There were also a number of young men walking around in WWII uniforms: Afrika Korps troopers, American GI's and Russian soldiers, among the others. We went up to a tent that contained informational brochures and found out that the festival being held was called "Return to Dreamland" and that it was meant to commemorate the WWII heritage of Dennison, Ohio. 


The Beer Tent. I texted this photo to Pete to make him envious.

Dennison was a railroad town on the Pennsylvania railroad line where there was a large yard to work on trains. There were two full roundhouses, and many shops and similar structures. Over 3000 people worked on the railroad in Dennison in the 1940's!! During WWII, approximately 70% of U.S. servicemen travelled through Dennison at some point.  During the War, the good folk of Dennison decided to aid the war effort by making sure that every service member received a free cup of coffee, a free donut and a kiss from a girl.  Because of the huge number of trains coming through the small town at all hours, this promise took an enormous logistical effort from the local populace.

After we read the brochure, we got a text from Tim telling us that he & Becky would be pulling into Dennison soon.  I called Tim and told him what was going on, and we all agreed to look around after the talk by Ed Bearss. Brian, Mike and I then headed over to the Church and got some front row seats as we waited for Tim and Becky to arrive.   Some other folks began filtering into the Church, but Tim and Becky got there in plenty of time to squeeze into the front row, center pew with us.  We exchanged greetings, but then Ed Bearss emerged  and mounted the dais on the alter, and we quieted down to hear the famous tones from this gifted speaker's mouth.


Ed Bearss enters a trance-like state as he expounds upon the deeds of the federal soldiery at Little Round Top.

I had heard Ed talk to our Central Ohio Civil War Roundtable on two separate occasions, and of course I had heard him on TV and on the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War.  Ed turned 88 the day after we saw him, but he has lost very little of his keen wit, famous recall and penetrating insights.  [In fact, Becky returned  the following day and brought Ed a cake!  See below] I will not recount his speech in detail: suffice it to say that he pointed out that there are many heroes of Little Round Top, and that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain played an honorable role in the defense of that rocky hill, but that no one should discount the contributions of Strong Vincent, James "Crazy" Rice, Paddy O'Rourke, George Sykes (who did NOT live up to his nickname of "Tardy George" on July 2, 1863) and G.K. Warren (ably aided by his All Star staff of Ranald "Bad Hand" McKenzie, Washington Roebling and Chauncey Reese).

After the speech, Ed took some Q&A from the crowd (I asked him to describe how he acquired Pea Ridge for the NPS, and he told us a very funny story of going around with a bigwig who fell down all the time), and then Ed signed books. Brian and Mike had brought a couple of the volumes they owned for Ed to sign, and I bought his latest work on Vicksburg and Gettysburg (which was the last book he had left from the inventory he brought).  We then chit-chatted with Ed before he graciously excused himself, and we headed out to enjoy the sites of Dreamland.

We went over to the old railroad depot, that now contains a restaurant and a gift shop. As we browsed through the gift shop, we saw signs to a museum, so we followed them out of the depot and onto a platform where a line of railroad cars was parked.  The rear door to the first car indicated it was the entrance to the museum, so we headed in. The parked railroad cars were the museum, which focused on the Dreamland years of Dennison.  You walk through each car and get a different presentation. One car focused on medical services; the next car had all sorts of postcards and soldiers letters mentioning the fine service they received in Dennison. Another car focused on the Civil War heritage of the area; another car featured memorabilia of local sports stars, including Denton True "Cy" Young.  It was really nicely done and we all enjoyed it a lot.  We then headed back into the Depot, where the friendly docents directed us to some other displays where model railroaders had recreated the town and railroad yards of Dennison as they existed in the 1940's.

After shopping in the gift shop (I bought a "Dreamland" pin for my hat), Mike, Brian and I decided to head back to Gnadehutten and then home to Columbus. We all liked Becky a lot, but we wanted to give Tim and her a little space together (a little bit of four Stamp Guys in a WWII festival with Civil War speeches goes a long way), and they decided to stay and have dinner at a cute restaurant on the square. We drove back west and stopped at Gnadehutton, and I showed Brian and Mike the nice monuments to the Massacre and we all walked through the cemetery to see the many burials of soldiers from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War and the Civil War. As the sun began to set, Brian, Mike and I jumped into the Lincoln and tooled back to Columbus on a clear and balmy night.