Thanks to reader Todd Berkoff (again) for passing this along.

The moron re-enactor who shot the 73-year old Union re-enactor at an event last year has been indicted, proving that idiocy can, indeed, be a crime. From Saturday’s edition of The New York Times:

Re-enactor Is Indicted in Shooting of a Yankee

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: January 17, 2009
The mysterious shooting of a would-be Yankee cavalryman from the Bronx during the filming of a Civil War re-enactment in Virginia in September has been solved, according to the authorities, with the indictment of a latter-day Johnny Reb who, they say, accidentally fired a .44-caliber ball from an 1860 Army Colt pistol that was supposed to be empty.

The shot

Continue reading

Thanks to reader Charlie Knight for passing this along….

The Augusta, Georgia Museum of History was recently robbed of Civil War-era items. None had a great deal of monetary value, but all are probably irreplaceable. A newspaper article from Charlie’s e-mail:

Published: January 13, 2009

(AUGUSTA) – The Augusta’s Story Room at the museum is missing some pieces of history and the theft was a brazen one.

Richmond County Investigator Alton Creech says Saturday, or Sunday, someone waited until no one was looking and smashed the display case that used to be here and took the items. No one may have seen the theft, but cameras were rolling.

Inv. Alton Creech: “There was video of the incident we’re trying to

Continue reading

From the January 12 edition of the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star newspaper:

Store Appears a Go in Orange
By Robin Knepper

1/12/2009

It can only be called unintended consequences.

Reacting strongly, and negatively, to pressure from groups of historians and preservationists, a majority of Orange County supervisors have thrown their support behind a Wal-Mart supercenter in the northeastern corner of the county.

At a weekend retreat supervisors Mark Johnson, Zack Burkett and Teel Goodwin declared their backing for the 138,000-square-foot store planned for a 19.5-acre site a quarter mile north of State Route 3.

Newly elected Board Chairman Lee Frame said he was undecided and his constituents were divided 50-50. Supervisor Teri Pace steadfastly opposed Wal-Mart’s building at that location.

The

Continue reading

As I did with his excellent last book, Shenandoah Summer: The 1864 Valley Campaign, I’ve been working my way through the manuscript of the next volume in his trilogy on Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The second volume will cover Third Winchester and Fisher’s Hill. I’ve now read 11 chapters, and am nearly through the narrative on Third Winchester, and it’s every bit as good as the last book was. When Scott’s done, he will have given the Valley Campaign the same exhaustive treatment that Gordon Rhea has given the Overland Campaign. There won’t be much left to cover when he’s finished.

I also introduced Scott to Ted Savas, and I believe that Ted’s planning on publishing the …

Continue reading

J.D. has an excellent post on his blog today titled “The Forest From the Trees”, which does the best job of explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing with our trilogy on the Gettysburg Campaign I’ve yet seen, my own words included. I commend it to you.

Continue reading

I had heard that the Eternal Peace Light Memorial at Gettysburg had been senselessly vandalized a couple of days ago, but I had not heard just how much damage was done. Then, our friends at Gettysburg Daily documented it on their blog today.

Some moron spray painted obscenities all over the Peace Light, spewing hate and damaging a monument to peace, brotherhood and unity dedicated at the final reunion of the veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg. As it was stated on Gettysburg Daily, “The words are profane, and the drawings are vulgar.” They are so bad, in fact, that the National Park Service had to cover the worst of it up with plywood.

It will cost a great deal …

Continue reading

From today’s on-line version of the Gettysburg Times comes great news:

Country Club: NO SALE!

No bids; Bank retains club
BY JARRAD HEDES
Published: Friday, January 9, 2009 12:14 PM EST
Times Staff Writer

Fifty people packed a meeting room in the Adams County Courthouse on Friday morning, but no one bid on the 60-year-old Gettysburg Country Club, which was up for sheriff’s sale.

The upset bid for the club was announced at $2.79 million.

The lack of bids means the club, 730 Chambersburg Road, goes to Susquehanna Banks, which foreclosed on the property earlier this year.

On Friday, the bank agreed to pay $37, 109.76, which covered the costs of the sheriff sale and municipal liens of $11,687 owed

Continue reading

Many thanks to regular reader Todd Berkoff for sending this article from today’s edition of the Washington Post:

Planning Agency Approves Homeland Security Complex
Preservationists Fear Effect on St. Elizabeths Campus
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 9, 2009; B01

After years of battling historic preservationists, the federal government won approval yesterday to build a massive headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security on a 176-acre hilltop site east of the Anacostia River.

The $3.4 billion headquarters would be one of the largest construction projects in the Washington area since the Pentagon was built in the 1940s. Advocates say it would generate economic activity in one of the city’s poorer corners and provide a secure

Continue reading

A significant piece of the first day’s battlefield at Gettysburg lies just to the west of Willoughby Run. John Buford’s dismounted cavalrymen fought their way back to McPherson’s Ridge from Herr’s Ridge across this ground. The parcel includes the spot where Confederate Brig. Gen. James J. Archer was captured on July 1, 1863. The Iron Brigade slugged it out with Pettigrew’s North Carolinians there in some of the bloodiest, closest fighting of the Battle of Gettysburg.

That land has, for the past sixty years or so, been the property of the Gettysburg Country Club. The Gettysburg Country Club owns 120 acres, including a nine-hole golf course, a clubhouse, a swimming pool, and tennis courts.

The Country Club defaulted on its …

Continue reading

I forgot one of the new blogs that I had intended to include when I updated the blogroll the other day.

Mike Noirot has launched a really interesting new blog called This Mighty Scourge. It makes for an interesting hodgepodge of information that is worth your time.

Mike also maintains another interesting web site called Battlefield Portraits, which features some really excellent photography of Civil War battlefields. Check it out.

I’ve added the blog to the blogroll.

Continue reading