On Monday, Dan Hoisington, the publisher at Edinborough Press, the publisher of my Ulric Dahlgren bio, informed me that he had approved the blue lines for the book and had returned them. He indicated that the printer was running about two weeks for printing and binding, so it would appear that the book is on track for the end of June release date that I’ve been promising. As this book was one of my labor of love projects, I am particularly eager to see the final product in print.

Stay tuned.

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Yesterday finally ended three weeks of insanity.

On Friday morning, I hit the road for Virginia, headed for Culpeper. It’s nearly 435 miles each way, and it’s a LONG drive. I reached the Graffiti House at Brandy Station about 3:30, and then spent the next 90 minutes laying out a driving tour for my Brandy Station book, including shooting GPS coordinates for the stops on the tour (I ended up shooting 36 of them). I then went and checked into my hotel, had dinner in the hotel restaurant, and spent the evening watching the Pens beat the big, bad Red Wings to bring Lord Stanley’s Cup home to Pittsburgh. It was really pretty remarkable.

Last summer, I auctioned off a …

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At 4:30 on Wednesday afternoon, as I was busily working on a draft of a complaint, my laptop suddenly locked up. When I tried to reboot it, it would not boot; the hard drive just made a clicking noise, and I came to the incredibly unhappy realization that I had suffered the same hard drive crash that my wife had suffered 13 days earlier. Apparently, the Fujitsu hard drives that Apple was using at the time (and Sony, too) are prone to zero-sector damages, which lead to crashes.

Of course, my whole life is on that computer. Most of the important stuff had a recent back-up done, but I still panicked. Anything that was sone since the back-up the week …

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Here is an e-mail that I received from Jackie Barton, the Ohio Civil War Sesquicentennial coordinator for the Ohio Historical Society about a large rally to be held on Thursday, June 11, to protest the slashing of the OHS budget by the Ohio Senate yet again:

Thank you to everyone who has shown their support of the Civil War 150th and the Ohio Historical Society by contacting your State Senators about funding!

Here’s the situation:

The Senate approved their version of the budget yesterday without restoring our funding, BUT there is still time to act. We’ve been hearing from the offices of state Senators and Representatives that our message is being heard!

What now?

The budget will go into conference

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I’m now home from the annual conference of the Civil War Preservation Trust, which was held in Gettysburg this year. More than 500 people attended, by far the largest event I’ve ever been involved with. I finally got to meet a lot of the CWPT personnel that I’ve worked with over the years in person, such as Tom Gilmore, David Duncan, Melissa Sadler, and Rob Shenk. It was really nice being able to put faces with the names.

There were lots of big name historians present, including Ed Bearss, Kent Masterson Brown, Richard McMurray, Ted Alexander, Jeff Wert, Dick Summers, and others of similar talent. It just wouldn’t be a tour if Ted Alexander didn’t get a bus stuck, …

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Winston Groom is a johnny-come-lately to the world of Civil War history. Best known as the author of Forrest Gump, he’s a novelist who has apparently decided that it is his responsibility to pick up Shelby Foote’s cudgel. I wish he hadn’t.

His first effort on the Civil War addressed John Bell Hood’s 1864 invasion of Tennessee. The book is titled Shrouds of Glory: From Atlanta to Nashville: The Last Great Campaign of the Civil War. It contains few maps, little detail and no footnotes. While a pleasant enough read, the lack of footnoting allows him to be lazy about his research, since there is no way to hold him accountable.

Not content to let well enough alone, …

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I received the following from Jackie Barton, who was named the coordinator for Ohio’s Sesquicentennial Commission:

Dear Friends of the Ohio Civil War 150 Effort,

The Ohio Historical Society launched an initiative to commemorate the Civil War 150th anniversary in Ohio early in 2009. With an approach that emphasizes programs and activities that provide lasting value for Ohio ’s communities and history organizations, the effort has already generated an immense amount of interest and support, even garnering a Governor’s Directive in April. Today, the program is in danger of disappearing, as the Ohio Senate is considering cutting ALL FUNDING for the Society’s outreach activities from the state budget! The Civil War 150th, which would provide coordination, traveling exhibits, Civil War

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Tomorrow begins my crazy travel schedule. Tomorrow, it’s off to Gettysburg for the annual muster of the Civil War Discussion Group Online, and a retreat tour on Saturday. We come home Sunday (Susan’s going with me on this one), and then it’s back to Gettysburg again next Friday for the annual conference of the CWPT, where I have a full day tour to lead. Then, we’re off to Middleburg, VA on Sunday night for a memorial for our friend Deborah Fitts, and then home to Columbus on Monday morning. I leave again that Friday, this time for Brandy Station and Trevilian Station, to fulfill a commitment I made last year, when I auctioned off a personal tour to …

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On this Memorial Day, please take a moment and say thank you to the veterans who gave so much to permit us to enjoy the freedoms that we enjoy and who have worked so hard to keep us safe. Thank you to all who have made those sacrifices. I want to give a special thanks to my friend Col. Wade Sokolosky, who is just finishing up a year in Afghanistan. Wade’s son is also on active duty in the U.S. Army. Thank you, Wade.

And a special thanks to Sgt. Morton L. Wittenberg, USAAF, World War II, and Gunnery Sgt. Joseph L. Pacitto, USMC, Grenada, Panama, Desert Storm, and Somalia.

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Dan Hoisington, the owner of Edinborough Publishing, told me tonight that my biography of Ulric Dahlgren goes to the printer tomorrow. That marks the culmination of six long years of work on that project, and it’s the culmination of a labor of love. I can’t wait to see the book in print.

It’s due out by the end of June. I will keep everyone posted as to progress, and it will shortly be available for pre-order on my other web site.

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