From the front page section of today’s issue of The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Gettysburg battles again over a casino plan

By Amy Worden

Inquirer Staff Writer

GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The struggle between the forces of development and preservation here on the ground where the nation’s most famous battle was fought is almost as old as the conflict itself.

Efforts to capture visitors’ dollars date to shortly after the 1863 battle, when souvenir hunters and relatives of missing soldiers arrived.

Today, amid heightened efforts to protect vulnerable parts of the battlefield and restore other areas to their original condition, preservationists see a new threat on the horizon: a proposal to put a resort casino in an aging conference center a half-mile

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One of the more enduring and more intriguing puzzles associated with the Battle of White Sulphur Springs is finding information regarding Capt. Paul von Koenig, who was killed in action on the first day of the battle, August 26, 1863. Koenig was killed while leading a flank attack of elements of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry on the afternoon of the first day. In 1914, Col. James M. Schoonmaker of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry arranged for a monument to be placed on the spot where Koenig was killed and buried. Although the monument has been moved (and I don’t know whether Koenig’s body was, although I assume it was) because the field where it was originally placed is now a strip …

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The web site for selling my books, which can be found here, has been completely re-designed and re-launched. Best of all, the broken shopping cart function has been fixed, and I can now take orders on-line once more. Please check it out. I welcome feedback and suggestions about how to make it better.

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Well, I had an excellent visit to the White Sulphur Springs battlefield not long ago. I had a chance to walk the entire Confederate battle line with West Virginia Civil War historian extraordinaire Terry Lowry, and saw most of the Union line as well. Most of the Confederate line is now a large cow pasture, and it’s filled with land mines. Not the sort that explode, but not the sort you want to step on, either. I had to watch every step I took, but it was worth it. Terry’s a relic hunter, and he’s relic-hunted the entire battlefield. Consequently, he knows were the relics show the action was, and I now understand that battlefield. We recently bought a digital …

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Back in March, Nick Redding of the CWPT filmed me on South Cavalry Field at Gettysburg, talking about the reasons why the proposed site for the casino is such a bad one. It rained heavily that day, and there are issues with traffic sloshing through the rain. However, the video is now posted here. Scroll down the page, and you will find a button for the video. Please take the five minutes to watch it–one half mile south of the park boundary, on battlefield land–is NO place for a casino.

Thanks to all of you who have been involved in fighting the plan to place this unwanted and unneeded casino on battlefield land at Gettysburg.

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Yesterday, I signed a contract with The History Press for a volume on Averell’s August 1863 Law Book Raid, which led to the August 26-27, 1863 Battle of White Sulphur Springs. Averell’s West Virginia and western Pennsylvania cavalry fought the infantry brigade of Col. George S. Patton in White Sulphur Springs, a couple of miles from The Greenbrier.

It’s never had any sort of a book-length study, and it’s probably overdue for one. Terry Lowry, who has done some good work on the Civil War in West Virginia, has agreed to show me the battlefield, and lots of people are helping me with it.

Unfortunately, the battlefield has been largely obliterated. A strip shopping center occupies most of the battlefield, …

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I have agreed to do a tour for David Woodbury’s Historical Tours company in September. The tour will focus on the Battles of Kelly’s Ford, Brandy Station, and Trevilian Station, and will be based in Culpeper, Virginia. I’ve done this tour previously, and it’s a good one. The cost of the tour is $270, which includes everything but lodging at the Best Western in Culpeper. For those interested in cavalry actions, this will be a good opportunity to learn about the evolution of the Union cavalry, as it evolved into one of the largest, most effective mounted force the world had ever seen. We will visit the sites of the two largest cavalry battles of the Eastern Theater of …

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A couple of weeks ago, I gave an interview to to Nate Delesline, III of the Culpeper Star-Exponent regarding my new book on the Battle of Brandy Station, which has now run in the paper. I thought I would share it here.

Examining the Civil War’s Battle of Brandy Station

Nate Delesline III
NDELESLINE@STAREXPONENT.COM
(540) 825-0771 ext. 110

Published: March 28, 2010
Updated: March 28, 2010

Author Eric J. Wittenberg thinks history buffs and casual readers alike will enjoy his newest work.

“The Battle of Brandy Station: North America’s Largest Cavalry Battle” was recently published by Charleston, S.C.-based The History Press. This is Wittenberg’s 16th book.

“I worked on gathering the research material that makes up the part of

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Time for some periodic housekeeping on the blog roll.

Leaving us: Brian Dirck hasn’t had a new post since October 19. As much as I enjoy Brian’s insights, it appears that his blog has once more faded to black (for the second time now). Old friend Duane Siskey hasn’t posted since September 28. Those two blogs will be deleted from the blog roll. If they resume posting at some point, I will add them back into the blog roll.

Joining us: My friend Scott Patchan has launched a blog in support of his studies of Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, and old friend Tom Clemens has launched a blog on the 1862 Maryland Campaign in support of his work on …

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I got my copies of my new book, The Battle of Brandy Station: North America’s Largest Cavalry Battle today, and I have to say that I think that my publisher, The History Press did an excellent job with the book. It’s a handsome volume, and they did everything that I asked them to do.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Clark B. “Bud” Hall, who is my mentor for all things Brandy Station. What I know about the battle, I know because of Bud Hall. Bud’s lifetime of research and intimate knowledge of every bump and every corner of the battlefield has been the source of much of what I know. His research also provided the basis for the …

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