Last week, Dimitri Rotov posted about his recent visit to a Barnes & Noble store. He wrote:

Shortly before my recent vacation, I stopped by the Barnes & Noble in Reston to see what was doing in the ACW section. Among regional bookstores, their Civil War section is the smallest for some reason.

I usually make a note of what the buyers have stocked up on. Most times, the quantities are not significantly different from title to title. On this day, I did a doubletake to see they had stacked face out at least half a dozen of Eric Wittenberg’s new Savas Beatie book, The Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads. A very handsome edition it is too, with lots of maps …

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On Saturday, Susan and I visited a local independent bookseller. They actually have a much better selection of Civil War books than any of the local Barnes & Noble stores (I hate Barnes & Noble. However, that’s another rant for another day). Also, the best customers that Ironclad Publishing has are the independents, so I go out of my way to patronize the independents wherever and whenever possible, just because I feel compelled to support those who support us.

Being an independent bookseller, they also have a lot more latitude to focus on things of local interest and on local authors. However, I was unprepared for what I saw when I walked into the store on Saturday. There, in a …

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Today is the 142nd anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Trevilian Station, named for an obscure stop on the Virginia Central Railroad located in Louisa County, Virginia.

There, in a brutal two-day slugging match that was the largest all-cavalry battle of the Civil War (there were 3,000 Union infantry engaged at Brandy Station), Wade Hampton thrashed Philip H. Sheridan’s cavalry and utterly prevented Sheridan from achieving any of his strategic objectives for his second protracted cavalry raid. I have argued that Hampton’s victory at Trevilian Station was the only decisive cavalry battle of the war. I define decisive as making an impact on the ultimate outcome of the war.

Grant had ordered Sheridan to take two divisions …

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143 years ago today, an epic passage of arms occurred on the hills and fields surrounding an obscure stop on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad called Brandy Station, located a few miles from Culpeper Court House. 21,000 Union and Confederate cavalrymen and 3,000 Union infantrymen spent fourteen hours locked in mortal combat that day.

The Union commander, Brig. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, the temporary commander of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps, was given a simple task: fall upon, destroy, or disperse the huge concentration of Confederate cavalry in Culpeper County. Pleasonton designed a brilliant plan. He divided his force into two wings. The right wing, consisting of the First Cavalry Division and a brigade of 1,500 selected infantry, would …

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Last Friday, when we went to Trevilian Station, I photographed about a dozen sites around the battlefield. These photos will be used in the new edition of my study of Sheridan’s Trevilian Raid that will be published by Bison Books in 2007. Although I was hoping to add new material to the main body of the book, I understand why that would be very difficult. It would change everything, from pagination to the existing index, and everything else.

Instead, we agreed that I would be permitted to add a driving tour of the raid that will feature about a dozen contemporary views of the battlefield, which explains the photography last week. I’ve been working on putting together the driving tour, …

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Please welcome Tom Churchill, Stephen McManus, and Donald Thompson, authors of a useful book on Civil War research and all ancestors of members of the 18th Massachusetts Infantry, to the blogosphere. They have launched a new blog called Touch the Elbow. I have added a link in my blog directory. There’s some interesting material here. Check it out!

Welcome to the blogosphere, guys.

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My recent visit to Gettysburg reminded me of a phenomenon that never ceases to amaze me. As I drove through the Little Round Top area, and specifically, by the spur where the 20th Maine fought, I was again astonished by the number of people packed into that small area. Many of them are, of course, there because of either The Killer Angels or Ted Turner’s movie adaptation of it.

The star of both book and movie is Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the commander of the 20th Maine Infantry. To be sure, Jeff Daniels gave a terrific performance as Chamberlain, and he deserves the accolades that he received for that performance (too bad the follow up in Gods and Generals wasn’t …

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This is another in my periodic series of profiles of forgotten cavalrymen.

Today is the 142nd anniversary of the death of one of my very favorite figures of the Civil War, Confederate Brig. Gen. William Edmonson “Grumble” Jones. If ever there was an individual who earned and deserved a particular nickname, it was Jones.

Grumble Jones had earned his nickname—he was irascible and prone to complaining. However, the Confederate cavalry chieftain, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart respected him. Although he greatly disliked Grumble Jones, Stuart nevertheless called him “the best outpost officer in the army.” Stuart also praised Jones’ “marked courage and determination”, indicating a grudging respect for Jones’ abilities. At the same time, however, when Jones was promoted to brigade …

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I’m back from Gettysburg. It was a fun but terribly exhausting weekend. We were really kind of overprogrammed for the time we were there. Friday was an incredibly long day. We were up at 5:00 AM for a 6:00 departure to take Dale Gallon to tour the Trevilian Station battlefield. It took 3 1/2 hours to get down there, we spent a little more than 3 hours on the battlefield, and then another 3 1/2 hours to drive back to Gettysburg. All told, it was nearly a twelve hour day, followed by another very long day yesterday. Today, I had a six hour drive home after about four hours of battlefield stomping.

One thing really struck me during my time …

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The last time that I was in Gettysburg was in September, about a week after I began this blog. That means it’s been about eight months, which, for me, is a very long time not to go there. I’ve been getting itchy for another visit, and it’s going to occur this weekend.

I have been a member of the Gettysburg Discussion Group, which is the granddaddy of all on-line discussion groups, since 1996. I served as a member of the board of trustees, and I’ve always hovered around the nucleus of the group. Sometimes, when I have time and interest in a given topic, I participate a lot. Other times, rarely at all. However, it’s been a great group …

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