We’re back home after 8 wonderful days in California. As I said before we left, there was no Civil War this trip. Instead, the trip was all about family and relaxing, which I desperately needed.

We flew Southwest. For those of you unfamiliar with Southwest, it’s kind of like the Greyhound of the sky. There is no assigned seating, and there are typically multiple stops on every flight. Our flight on the way home started somewhere else, had its first stop in San Jose, where we got on, went to Burbank, to Las Vegas (where we got off), San Antonio, and then on to Philadelphia, where it ended.

We changed planes in Las Vegas and flew home to Columbus from …

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This morning, Susan and I leave for a much-needed vacation. We’re headed to California for a week. There will be no Civil War on this trip, and I intend to take a much needed break from work, researching, writing, and, yes, blogging, too. We will be back on the evening of the 15th. Posting will resume on the 16th. Have a good week and enjoy your respite from me.

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Just to show that I’m not just committed to the preservation of cavalry battlefields, here’s an opportunity to do some real good for the preservation of the battlefield at Franklin AND a way to gain a $10,000 corporate donation, too.

The Franklin’s Charge organization www.franklinscharge.org of Franklin TN is currently conducting a fundraising campaign to purchase the famous Carter Cotton Gin property, epicenter of the Nov. 30, 1864 Battle of Franklin and site of the death of Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne. A large payment on the property is due in early September and Franklin’s Charge is in the midst of a special urgent appeal.

Christie’s Cookies will donate $10,000 to whichever charity receives the most votes in an online “election.”

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The Land Trust of Virginia issued this press release today:

THE LAND TRUST OF VIRGINIA CREATES THE
DEBORAH WHITTIER FITTS BATTLEFIELD STEWARDSHIP FUND

Middleburg, Va. (August 6, 2009) – The Land Trust of Virginia Board of Directors has created a new fund, called the Deborah Whittier Fitts Battlefield Stewardship Fund, as a means of recognizing and providing financial support for landowners interested in protecting properties where Civil War battles took place. Grants from the fund will be used to offset some of individual landowner’s expenses associated with putting battlefield acreage into easement.

The Land Trust of Virginia (LTV) currently holds easements on 25 Civil War battlefield properties covering more than 1,500 acres, including 912 acres of the Battle of Upperville,

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Time for another in my infrequent posts on forgotten Union cavalrymen. Today, we’re focusing on a little-known officer who commanded an even more obscure unit. Erastus Blakeslee was born to Joel and Sarah Marie Mansfield Blakeslee in Plymouth, Connecticut on September 2, 1838. He attended the Williston Seminary at Easthampton, Massachusetts for his college preparatory studies, and entered the freshman class at Yale University in the fall of 1859. He was on his spring vacation in 1861 when the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, and he was one of the first from Plymouth to enlist in response to President Lincoln’s call for volunteers.

He enlisted in Company A of the 1st Battalion Connecticut Cavalry Volunteers on October 9, 1861. Nine …

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I have finished my Brandy Station manuscript, and submitted it to the publisher over the weekend. I am waiting for my editor to let me know what the projected release date is, but I am told that there’s a reasonably good chance that they will get it out before the end of the year.

The manuscript features a walking/driving tour of the publicly accessible portions of the battlefield, 11 of Steve Stanley’s superb maps (published with the permission of the Civil War Preservation Trust), and about 50 other illustrations. It will also feature a foreword by Jim Lighthizer, the president of the CWPT, that discusses the fight to preserve the battlefield.

Part of my motivation in writing this book …

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On Thursday, I accepted an invitation that I was honored to receive. I have been invited to be the keynote presenter at the 20th anniversary picnic commemorating the founding of the Brandy Station Foundation, which will be on September 13, 2009, at Berry Hill Farm in lovely Culpeper County, Virginia. The event begins at 1:00, and I will be speaking between 2:30 and 3 on a subject that is near and dear to my heart, “Preservation and the Brandy Station Battlefield.

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In response to yesterday’s post, my friend Bud Hall has weighed in on the loss of the southern end of Fleetwood Hill. This was originally a comment to the post, but it is important enough that I decided to feature it as a main post here.

Back in 1984, I was transferred to FBI Headquarters in Washington, and soon bought a home in Virginia. Growing up in Mississippi on a cotton farm–and descended from a 13th Mississippi infantryman–I of course retained in my genes a compelling interest in the Civil War.

My very first weekend trips took me (and my maps) to Brandy Station. Map and primary source analysis, as well as discussions with land owners, convinced me that

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My friend Clark “Bud” Hall wrote the following piece for his former column that appeared in the Culpeper Star-Exponent newspaper:

Fleetwood Hill: The Famous Plateau

“The Most Marched Upon, Camped Upon, Fought Upon, Fought Over Piece of Real Estate in American History.”

As one enters Culpeper County on U.S. Highway 29 from the northeast, your vehicle proceeds about four miles and soon passes a little knoll on the right. Scooped from the flood plain of the Rappahannock River, this grassy, gentle hillock marks the southern terminus of a two and a half mile ridge that witnessed more fighting, more often, than any other piece of ground in this country—in any war.

Fleetwood Hill—geologically the beach of a primeval sea—overlooks a

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The following article appeared in today’s edition of the New York Times:

Civil War Fires Up Literary Shootout

By MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: July 29, 2009
LOS ANGELES — History repeats itself. But sometimes it needs a little polishing up from Hollywood.

Over the last few weeks, the writers of a pair of Civil War-era histories about the anti-Confederate inhabitants of Jones County, Miss., have been trading barbs in an unusual public spat. It began when the author of one book, rights to which had been sold to Universal Pictures and the filmmaker Gary Ross, discovered that Mr. Ross had spurred the publication of a new and somewhat sexier work on the same subject.

The encounter has created unexpected bad

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