This Saturday, March 24, J. D. Petruzzi and I are the keynote speakers at the annual Maryland in the Civil War: A Regional Perspective put on by the Historical Society of Carroll County, Maryland. The event is held in Westminster, which is the county seat of Carroll County. J. D. and I are the opening speakers that day, and we will be discussing one of the most important but least known episodes from our Stuart’s Ride book, the charge of the 1st Delaware Cavalry, also known as Corbit’s Charge.

We’re on first, from 9:30 to 10:30. The conference is being held at Carroll Community College, 1601 Washington Road, in Westminster. Lunch is included. We will be signing books after our …

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I’ve continued to explore the connection between Ulric Dahlgren and Davey Herold, which I first mentioned in this blog on February 27. My research indicates that it’s quite probable that Herold and Dahlgren knew each other, but it’s now clear that they didn’t attend Rittenhouse Academy at the same time; they missed each other by a couple of months.

Herold’s father was the clerk for the Washington Navy Yard, and the family lived in a large brick house right outside the gates of the Navy Yard on 8th Street. Davey Herold attended a private school as a boy and then attended Georgetown College from 1855 to 1858, where he studied pharmacy. He entered Rittenhouse Academy in January 1859. He then …

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Today, media giant Viacom has sued Google for $1 billion in damages for copyright infringement arising from the posting of its copyrighted material on You Tube. Here’s an article on this litigation from CNET:

Viacom sues Google over YouTube clips
By Anne Broache and Greg Sandoval
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: March 13, 2007, 6:35 AM PDT
Last modified: March 13, 2007, 2:14 PM PDT
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update Viacom on Tuesday slapped YouTube and parent company Google with a lawsuit, accusing the wildly popular video-sharing site of “massive intentional copyright infringement” and seeking more than $1 billion in damages.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, contends …

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We got up early on Sunday morning and drove down to Franklin. We arrived at the Carter House about 9:30, where we met David Fraley, the very accomplished staff historian there. David opened things up early for us, and then took us on a battlefield tour.

I had never seen any of these sites, and I was absolutely flabbergasted by the number of bullet holes and the amount of battle damage to the Carter buildings. David quite correctly pointed out that those five hours of fighting at Franklin were probably THE bloodiest five hours in American history. We saw the damage to the farm office building and to the summer kitchen. David’s telling of the stories of Emerson Opdycke’s men …

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Well, we’re home. I’m exhausted, but it was a great trip. I will post specifics and photographs from this morning’s battlefield tour at Franklin tomorrow, so please be patient.

I made it through the entire winter without so much as a sniffle….until last Thursday. In another sterling example of the truth of Murphy’s Law, I woke up on Thursday realizing that I was coming down with a head cold, and by the time we reached Nashville on Friday, it was full blown, and it was a bad one, even with using Zicam. Traditionally, I never sleep well the first night of a cold, because I can’t breathe. Likewise, I almost never sleep well in beds that I’m not familiar with, …

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I’ve never claimed to be an expert on Western Theater cavalry operations. There are lots of reasons for that. For one thing, there was nobody like Jeb Stuart in the Western Theater until Wade Hampton was promoted and sent south in February 1865. That’s a big part of the reason why the Union horse soldiers there were pretty much the second team and why they were led by either lesser soldiers or rejects from the Army of the Potomac. I’m not much of an admirer of Nathan Bedford Forrest, and don’t think much of him as a soldier. I’ve worked on the Carolinas Campaign at some length, and I’m working on John Hunt Morgan’s Great Indiana and Ohio Raid of …

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I received the following e-mail from Mark Dunkelman today. Mark is THE authority on the 154th New York Infantry, and someone whose work I admire.

Dear Eric,

A matter has come to my attention that is of importance to the Civil War community. I hope you’ll see fit to spread the news via your blog.

Since 2000, folks have had two options in ordering Civil War pension files from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). They could order a “Pension Documents Packet” consisting of eight documents containing genealogical information for a fee of $14.75. Or they could order the “Full Pension Application File” for $37.

By far, most people chose the Full Pension Application File option. In FY 2006, …

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This coming Saturday, March 10, is not only the 142nd anniversary of the Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads, it’s also the day of the Third Annual Nashville Civil War Conference. The conference, which focuses on Western Theater cavalry operations, will be held at Traveller’s Rest Plantation. I will be speaking on Union cavalry operations. Since it’s such a broad topic, I’m going to focus more on personalities and give a broad overview of the operations.

Quite coincidentally, that same night, March 10, the Columbus Blue Jackets play the Nashville Predators at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Music Town.

So, I will get to spend the day talking about my favorite subject, and then after the conference ends, we will …

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Having grown up in the Philadelphia suburbs in the 1970’s, we were all hockey crazy. When I was 13 years old in the spring of 1974, the Flyers won their first of two consecutive Stanley Cup championships, and we were ALL hockey crazy. I’ve retained my love of hockey for my whole life, and when it was announced we were going to get our own NHL expansion team here in Columbus, I was absolutely thrilled. I share a set of season tickets with one of my former law partners, and I remain a loyal Flyers fan, too.

Our team is called the Blue Jackets, named to honor Ohio’s contributions to the Union victory in the Civil War. It’s a …

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Thanks to regular reader and old friend Pete Vermilyea–thanks, Pete!–I made a fascinating discovery today.

Ulric Dahlgren was born in 1842 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. At age seven, his mother dead, the family moved to Washington, DC when his father was appointed to command the Navy’s Ordnance Bureau. While the family lived in Washington, Ulric attended the Rittenhouse Academy, a prestigious private boy’s school. Ulric did not graduate, but left early in 1858, his restless nature prompting him to search for greater adventures.

One of his classmates at the Rittenhouse Academy–also born in 1842–was David Herrold. Herrold, of course, was one of the Lincoln assassination conspirators who fled with John Wilkes Booth. Herrold surrendered but Booth refused, and Booth was …

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