Last night, in order to answer a question that someone sent via e-mail, I pulled out the H. E. Howard regimental history of the 16th Virginia Cavalry. After checking the roster to answer the question I’d been asked, I decided to have a look to see what the book might have about Monocacy, as the 16th Virginia was part of McCausland’s Brigade, which fought all day at Monocacy on July 9, 1864. There’s not much, a couple of paragraphs. However, there was a map that caught my eye.

This map indicated that there was a skirmish on July 7 between the men of McCausland’s Brigade and troopers of the 4th U.S. Cavalry at Hagerstown, after which the town was ransomed. …

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Michael has put up a page about our baseball project, YOU STINK! Major League Baseball’s Terrible Teams and Pathetic Players. Be sure to have a look. We think it’s going to be great fun.

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This will follow up on my post of last week, where I complained about The History Channel. The following appeared on MSNBC today. It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one who feels the same way about this particular issue.

NEW YORK – The History Channel is now history.

Make that History. The cable network quietly dropped “the” and “channel” from its name recently, claiming History for itself.

“Our brand is, in the media landscape, synonymous with the genre of history so I don’t think it’s presumptuous of us to call ourselves History,” said Nancy Dubuc, the network’s executive vice president.

That’s how many viewers already refer to it, she said. “Channel” is a drag on efforts to

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The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (“MOLLUS”), a veteran’s organization for Union officers of the Civil War, established its museum and headquarters in a building on Pine Street in one of the oldest parts of Philadelphia. The museum is presently located at 1805 Pine Street. When I was a child, my aunt and uncle lived at 2021 Pine Street, just over a block away, and I never knew that the place existed. I only discovered it in the 1990’s. The place has an interesting collection: a very impressive library, including all of the MOLLUS publications, the stuffed and mounted head of George Meade’s war horse, Old Baldy (which is actually kind of creepy, if the …

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I would be remiss if I didn’t give credit where it’s due and if I didn’t point out what a great job Rene Tyree’s doing over at the Wig Wags blog. Rene’s been posting some remarkably insightful and thoroughly fascinating material on Jominian military history that are some of the most informative blog posts I’ve ever seen.

Keep up the really great work, Rene.

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J. D, and I were approached by Randy Drais, the proprietor of a new website on the Battle of Gettysburg several weeks ago. He asked us to review a draft of the site and give him some feedback, which we gladly did. Randy’s been banging away at it since then, and he’s now formally launched the site. For those interested in the Battle of Gettysburg, his site is definitely worth a visit. Check it out.

I’ve added a link.

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All of the snow has melted, meaning that the ground here was fully and completely saturated before today’s heavy rains hit. My back yard looks like a lake, there is so much standing water. With two golden retrievers that go slogging through the mud every chance they get, we’re both getting tired of giving the dogs baths. I gave Aurora a bath a little while ago, as there is muck, muck, and more muck everywhere. We’re supposed to have 3-4 inches of rain between today and tomorrow, meaning widespread flooding all over Ohio. I never thought I would hear myself say this, but….

I’m almost praying for a drought. I can’t take any more mud…..

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I decided to take a few days away from the blog–three or four–just to recharge my batteries a little bit, and also because I didn’t really have much of anything to say. I’ve been working on stuff related to a completely unrelated business venture that has nothing to do with the Civil War as well as legal stuff, and nothing terribly interesting pertaining to the Civil War or to this blog came up. In short, I really didn’t have much of anything worth saying, so I decided to take a couple of days away from the blog. I know you all are used to my posting nearly every day, and I apologize for being away for a few days, but …

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Hat tip to Harry Smeltzer for pointing this one out to us….

Welcome to the blogosphere to Robert H. Moore, II, who’s got a new but interesting blog called Cenantua. Robert wrote several of the volumes of the H. E. Howard Virginia Regimentals Series (mainly on artillery subjects), so I am familiar with his work. I’ve added a link to his blog.

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Today is the 166th anniversary of the death of British officer Henry Shrapnel, the inventor of the long-range artillery shell that bears his name.

Here’s an interesting article about him that appeared on Wired.com today:

March 13, 1842: Henry Shrapnel Dies, But His Name Lives On
By Tony Long 03.13.08 | 12:00 AM

1842: Henry Shrapnel, inventor of the long-range artillery shell that bears his name, dies.

Shrapnel, a British lieutenant, was serving in the Royal Artillery when he perfected his shell in the mid-1780s. A shrapnel shell, unlike a conventional high-explosive artillery round, is designed as an anti-personnel weapon. The projectile is packed with fragments — often sharp metal, lead balls or nails — and detonates in midair, spraying

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