Please allow me to update you all on the problems you’ve had accessing this site the past two days.

Yesterday, our web host was the subject of a dedicated denial of service attack by hackers that caused their systems to crash. Once they got back up today, the server itself had a failure, and the web sites hosted on it had to be migrated to a new server.

Everything now seems to have been resolved, and everything seems to be pretty much back to normal. I apologize for any inconvenience, and can only join you in hoping that it’s all been resolved and for good.

Continue reading

When I was in college, I worked hard at trying to make the college baseball team as a pitcher. At my very best, I was a very mediocre right handed relief pitcher. During the winter and spring of my sophomore year, as I worked at getting ready for the season, I did a lot of pitching with a friend of mine catching. In the process of working on my slider, I developed an absolutely hellacious case of tendonitis in my right elbow. Specifically, it’s tennis elbow, as then tendons on top are the ones causing the trouble.

I spent a lot of time in trainer’s room, missed the season, and thought I was over it. That summer–1981–I ran the baseball …

Continue reading

This is especially intriguing news….

According to today’s issue of the Outer Banks Sentinel newspaper, not only has a significant Confederate fort been found, that discovery has apparently finally solved the mystery of where Fort Raleigh was located:

FT. RALEIGH? NEW FIND ON ROANOKE ISLAND CREATES STIR
By Sandy Semans | Sentinel Staff

Scott Dawson, a native of Hatteras Island and now a resident of Colington, has shared the location of a discovery he made on National Park Service property with that agency, which has now secured the area and posted surveillance to insure that intruders don’t disturb the site.

Doug Stover, park historian of the Park Service, said that park officials think that the site may be the remains …

Continue reading

I spent three years of my life in the lovely, historic town of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Although it’s been nearly 24 years since I left there, I still love the place. I still visit every opportunity that I get.

My alma mater, Dickinson College, was founded in 1773 by Dr.Benjamin Rush, the famous Philadelphia physician and patriot (Dr. Rush signed the Declaration of Independence). The main building on campus, Old West, was burned by the British during the War of 1812. The college was visited by the Confederates in the days just before the Battle of Gettysburg, and was shelled by Jeb Stuart’s horse artillery on the night of July 1, 1863. We boast a chief justice of the …

Continue reading

Jenny Goellnitz is a fellow Buckeye, lawyer, and Civil War fanatic who maintains an eclectic blog called The Learned Foot. There are lots of interesting things on Jenny’s blog, including a link to her excellent A. P. Hill site. I’ve corresponded some with Jenny, mostly touching base on our common interests in the law and the Civil War, and she’s been unfailing delightful to deal with. She’s just starting her legal career, whereas I’m old and jaded, and I’ve tried to offer the occasional useful tip.

Thanks to Dimitri Rotov, I’ve learned that Jenny is facing a real health challenge that she has named “lumpy.” As she says she hates the real name for her problem, lumpy …

Continue reading

A gentleman named Ira Shaffer contacted me today and invited me to become a member of the board of trustees of the Friends of the Alligator. Mr. Shaffer has an illustrious ancestor, Marshal Joachim Murat, perhaps the greatest of all cavalrymen. I was very pleased to accept the offer, and thought it might be nice to post some information about the Alligator.

From The Dictionary of American Fighting Ships:

The creation of French inventor, Brutus De Villeroi. Whether a deliberate publicity stunt or not, DeVilleroi succeeded in convincing the Union Navy that he could produce a submersible warship from which a diver could place an explosive charge under an enemy ship. Six months later, in November 1861, he was …

Continue reading

My antipathy for Google’s book scanning copyright infringement scheme is well-documented here, and I won’t repeat my rants about why I am so vehemently opposed to that portion of the Google program that deals with works that are still subject to copyright protection. To reiterate one point: I have absolutely no problem or issue with that portion of the Google program that seeks to digitize public domain works, and wholeheartedly support that aspect of it. My gripe, stated here in one of my very first blog posts, has never changed.

In any event, a group of Belgian newspapers sued Google in Belgian courts, claiming that the posting of headlines and hyperlinks to their articles constituted copyright infringement under Belgian law. …

Continue reading

J. D. and I got a letter from the guy in Westminster who accused us of plagiarizing. We spent a lot of time composing a response to him that pointed out all of the reasons why there’s no way that we could have stolen his work when we’d never seen it.

His reply letter indicates that he is now satisfied that we didn’t plagiarize from him, he apologized for the accusation, and then got all warm and fuzzy, pointing out a few factual errors we made in our work, and offering to show us around Westminster when we’re in for an event next month. Funny how the tone changes and he suddenly wants to be our buddy when he …

Continue reading

As so often happens, Brett Schulte’s run out of steam for blogging and is hanging it up. I regret that, as I have always enjoyed Brett’s insights and his book reviews. Hopefully, he will regain his muse and resume blogging sooner than later, but for now, it’s goodbye to Brett. Brett, if there’s ever anything you want to blog, just let me know, and you’re welcome to do so here as a guest blogger.

Continue reading

Don Caughey, a teacher who regularly visits this blog, has launched his own blog Crossed Sabers, which focuses on “the cavalry in the United States, primarily oriented on the forces of both sides during the Civil War.” Welcome to the blogosphere, Don. I’ve added a link to my blogroll.

And thanks for your very kind words about …

Continue reading