Chris Wehner has a new blog, called Blog4 History, which features a Civil War component. Welcome to the blogosphere, Chris.

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As the author of eleven books, I’ve signed a lot of books in my life. As an example, the Civil War Preservation Trust purchased 2,200 copies of my book on the Battle of Trevilian Station, to be given away as a premium for a fundraiser to purchase battlefield land at Trevilians. I signed and numbered 2,000 book plates and 200 actual books, usually 200 per day, for eleven days. By the end of it, I thought I had perpetual writer’s cramp.

It happened again with my book on East Cavalry Field. CWPT was in the process of raising funds to pay for a preservation easement for a parcel of land across the street from the battlefield. This time, it was …

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The Stuart’s Ride project is finished, but for the index. I’ve already made my misery with the subject of indexes known here.

The Stuart’s Ride book is the second book I’ve done with Savas-Beatie Publishing. These two books are also the only two books I’ve done of the twelve where I’ve been forced to go out of pocket to pay for the index myself. Typically, I have either been asked to pay for them by deductions from royalties (the usual method), or in recent contracts, I have specifically negotiated this issue in the contracts, and specifically, making this a strictly publisher cost. None of the other accomplished and well-respected Civil War authors I know are asked to pay for …

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Lt. Edward B. Williston was an 1856 alumnus of Norwich University, Vermont’s version of VMI. Williston was one of those superb career Regular Army artillerists that made his mark on the American Civil War. He had a thirty-plus year career in the Regular Army and retired as a colonel with a Medal of Honor. He was awarded his Medal of Honor for his magnificent performance on the second day of the Battle of Trevilian Station, June 12, 1864.

Williston’s battery of Union horse artillery typically served with the Reserve Brigade of the 1st Division, Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac. On June 12, after repulsing seven determined Union attacks, Wade Hampton unleashed a savage counterattack that rolled up the Union …

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Warning: there is absolutely nothing about the Civil War or my historical work in this post. Instead, it’s about my hockey addiction, so please feel free to skip this post if it’s of no interest to you. I promise to get back to the usual rantings about history tomorrow.

Tonight is a sad night in our household. By now, it’s no secret that Susan and I are major NHL fans, although it’s probably fair to say that I’m a bigger fan. I’ve been a serious NHL fan since childhood. The Philadelphia Flyers won their first of two consecutive Stanley Cups in 1974, when I was 13 years old. They won it again the next year, and have never won another …

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It’s now been six weeks since Cleo had her stroke and we had to put her down. It’s been five weeks since little Miss Aurora came home, although it feels like MUCH longer, thanks to the sleep deprivation.

The thing about puppies is that they aren’t typically housebroken at the age of 8 weeks, which is how old Aurora was when we brought her home. We’re crate training her, but when we’re home in the evenings, and she’s out of the crate, we have to watch her like a hawk, and hustle her outside if she shows even the slightest inclination to pee, or else it’s on the floor. The whole watching like a hawk thing means one of us …

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The puppy got us up early this morning. She decided she had no interest in being in her crate this morning, and got us up early. I was flipping channels while contemplating showering, and came to the History Channel. To my great surprise, there I was on the screen. It was very strange.

In 1999, I was asked to be a talking head in an installment of an hour-long documentary on John Buford then being shot by Greystone for a new series called “The Unknown Civil War”. In March of that year, I went to Gettysburg and met the producer. It was early March, but it was uncommonly warm, nearly 70 degrees, although a violent cold front that would cause …

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Dimitri wrote the following in his blog post for today, quoting me in the process:

If that quote doesn’t grab you, if it strikes a “yeah, yeah, okay” note, you haven’t lately read any of the vast sea of Pulitzer Prize-winning history rooted in secondary sources. To paraphrase Tom Rowland (again), the deeper one goes into the material, the greater becomes the shock and personal fear at discovering how dependent one has been on other people’s previous surmises.

The risk of not going down Eric’s path, of trusting the previous treatments, is that you are made the fool by aggregating bad stuff. And that, in a nutshell, is the central problem in Civil War history today.

In an interview …

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I got my author’s copies of my Monroe’s Crossroads book today. I finally got to see the finished book for the first time.

Ted Savas did a terrific job with the book. I couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out. There are about 30 maps and about 50 illustrations, and it really came out every bit as well as I hoped it would. Let’s hope that it sells well. Books on the Carolinas Campaign seem to sell very well. The only question is whether a purely cavalry study will sell as well as the books on the larger battles seem to do.

In September 2001, I made my first trip to North Carolina. I was scheduled to speak …

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In a comment to yesterday’s post, Andy MacIsaac asked, “Could you provide some insight on your experience in using paid researchers. I have never done this so I am unfamiler with the process.” Sure, Andy. No problem.

Please let me set the stage for why I use paid researchers. Believe me, it’s not for laziness.

First, and foremost, I live in Central Ohio. On a good day, it’s a seven hour drive to Washington, DC. That means that for me to make a trip there, I spend two full days just driving. So, any trip has to have that time built in. Then, there are my professional responsibilities. My time is billed at an average rate of $200 per hour, …

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