I took a suggestion from Steve Stanley and returned the black and white Nook and exchanged it for the color version. The color version scales the PDF’s much better, and it also has a larger storage capacity than the black and white version. With the 8GB micro-SD card plugged in, the device now has 16GB worth of storage capacity. The display is 7 inches, as opposed to the 6 inch display for the black & white unit. The color version is larger, and weighs a good bit more, but the color is vivid.

Downside: The black and white unit comes with free built-in 3G wireless as well as built-in WiFi. The Nook Color does not have the 3G wireless capacity, …

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I was shocked today to learn that this little old blog was named THE highest ranked Civil War blog on the Internet by Online Courses.net, which is quite an unexpected honor. I had no clue, and frankly had no such expectation of such an honor, given that I took a long hiatus from blogging and have significantly cut back on my posting frequency from the first four years of the blog. I’m very flattered to be given such an honor, and am humbled by it.

Congratulations to everyone else who made the list, which also shows me that I have some serious adjustments to make to my blogroll this weekend. More on that …

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Harold Jackson is the editorial page editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer, the paper that I grew up reading. He is an African-American, and here is his take on whether to celebrate or commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War:

Commemorate, don’t celebrate Civil War’s 150th

By Harold Jackson

Inquirer Opinion Columnist
A number of years ago while in Biloxi, Miss., on assignment for the Baltimore Sun to report on the Gulf Coast’s casino industry, I took advantage of some down time to visit Beauvoir, the final home of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.

Only a handful of other visitors were there on that chilly, early fall day. They stared at me as much as they did the antique

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This article from Newsweek is one of the best discussions of why we fight the good fight to preserve our Civil War battlefield heritage, as well as spelling out the reasons why we can never, ever let our guard down. The fight will go on…..

Battle Over the Battlefields
One hundred and fifty years after the start of the Civil War, we’re still fighting. This time it’s development vs. preservation—and development’s winning.

A casino could soon sit near the Gettysburg battlefield, the bloodiest encounter on American soil. A Walmart supercenter may shadow the Wilderness battlefield in Virginia where Gen. U. S. Grant kept his headquarters when he first fought Gen. Robert E. Lee. And Washington, D.C.’s suburban sprawl is slowly

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Today saw the occurrence of an event that I’ve been waiting for since 1974. Today, I signed the publishing contract for You Stink! Baseball’s Terrible Teams and Pathetic Players, which I’ve written with my friend Michael Aubrecht. I first came up with this idea as a thirteen year old in 1974, and I can’t really describe how excited I am to finally see that dream come to fruition.

The book will be published by The Kent State University Press, and will be out in time for the 2012 baseball season.

More as things move toward publication.

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After much debate, and with some very valuable information provided by old friend Dave Powell, I took the plunge and bought a Barnes & Noble Nook yesterday. I got the black and white version largely because the color version is difficult to read in bright sunlight, and I anticipate taking the thing out into the field with me from time to time. The black and white version does quite nicely in bright sunlight. The color version also costs about $70 more than the one I bought.

The debate was whether to purchase the Nook or the Amazon Kindle. My plan was to use it for the public domain books that I download from sites like Google Book Search and …

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Let’s start the new year off with a profile of a forgotten cavalryman. It’s been too long since I last did one.

Milton Jameson Ferguson was born near Cassville, Wayne County, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1833. Friends and family called him by his middle name, Jameson. He was of Scots-Irish descent. His father, also named Milton J. Ferguson, owned a general store. He was described as “a studious young man, full of vim and vigor.” On September 21, 1854, he married Martha Jane Wellman.

In September 1853, at the young age of 20, he was admitted to the bar of Virginia and began practicing law in Wayne County. He had a busy and flourishing practice, handling litigation, estate, and …

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….And so 2010 fades to black as the lights begin to shine on 2011….

2011 brings the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and I’m sure that we will have many more interesting things to discuss as it plays out.

With thanks to Kevin Levin for a GREAT idea, I’d like to give you, my readers, the last word as the year comes to an end. Please feel free to share your final thoughts for the year here.

To all of you, I wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.

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For the 1001st post on this blog, I thought I would follow Prof. Glenn LaFantasie’s lead. Glenn has gone way out on a limb, and has published a list of his top 12 Civil War books of all time. For those who don’t know of Glenn and his work, he is the Richard Frockt Family Professor of Civil War History and Director of the Institute for Civil War Studies at Western Kentucky University and a good guy.

In creating his list, Glenn set certain parameters, and mine will follow the same parameters. He began:

I’ve only included books published after World War II, which means I’m leaving out a long shelf of good books issued before the second half

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I don’t know whether it should make me feel better that the State of Ohio is not the only state that has scrimped on funding its Sesquicentennial celebration. Indeed, it appears that most states are avoiding funding their sesquicentennial celebrations. The following appeared on MSNBC today:

States scrimping on Civil War anniversary
Efforts to commemorate the 150th anniversary of America’s bloodiest war will begin next year and run into 2015

By CHRIS CAROLA

updated 12/26/2010 2:18:27 PM ET

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York state contributed 448,000 troops and $150 million to the Union cause during the Civil War, not to mention untold tons of supplies, food, guns and munitions.

But with the 150th anniversary of the war’s start just

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