We spent eleven hours on the road today. We left our hotel at 8:00 this morning and made our way up to Culpeper, which is about 80 miles from Richmond. We visited Rose Hill, where Judson Kilpatrick had his headquarters during the winter of 1863-1864, had a tour of the house, and then set out to follow the route of the raid.

Our next stop was Eley’s Ford, where the entire Federal column crossed the Rapidan River, and then on through Chancellorsville, through Spotsylvania, and on into the countryside. We covered part of Kilpatrick’s route and part of Dahlgren’s route. We made our way out into Goochland County, including stopping by Sabot Hill, the plantation of Confederate Secretary of War …

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Greetings from Richmond. It’s almost 10:30 at night as I write this. I’ve been up since 4 AM, so I’m about half delirious and ready to go to sleep. I’m here for old friend Dr. Bruce Venter’s Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid tour. My flight left Columbus at 6:00 AM, so it’s been a long day. Today, I went to Five Forks, made a quick stop at Pamplin Park, visited the new museum at Tredegar–I meant to tour the museum, but some loyal readers of these rantings shanghaied me, and we ended up talking shop for an hour instead. Then, I picked up Bobby Krick at the Chimborazo Hospital site, which is where Bobby’s office is, and we went and visited a …

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Last week, I received an e-mail from one of the editorial assistants at the Syracuse University Press, asking me if I would be interested in doing a review of a book manuscript for them. The e-mail was addressed to “Professor Wittenberg”, so I had to let them know that I am but a humble lawyer and not a professional historian, and I offered to step aside if that was a problem.

They wrote back quickly, letting me know that they wanted me to proceed with the review. I don’t want to say what the book is about, as the review process is supposed to be confidential. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but they always …

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Last evening, I got an e-mail from Ted Savas indicating that the page galleys for the retreat book were ready for us to review. This is close to the end of the process; all that’s really left is to finish the copyediting and for the book to be indexed, and it’s then ready to go to the printer. I spent several hours going through the galleys, which are 536 pages without the index, and finding the sorts of very routine corrections that I would expect to find in a page galley at this phase.

After all of that work, it’s always extremely rewarding to see the book laid out in a format that is very close to what the final …

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It has now been six weeks since I sent my letter to Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio, inquiring as to what the state intended to do to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Sadly, and as I actually expected, I have gotten absolutely no response. That just verifies what I had suspected all along, which is that Ohio is pretty much a historical wasteland.

I wish I could say that I am surprised by the lack of a response, but I can’t.

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J. D. has a post on his blog tonight responding to concerns about how we can turn out a quality book so soon after the publication of Plenty of Blame to Go Around. Some have expressed the concern that our retreat book might not be as good since it’s coming out only 18 months after the publication of POB.

J.D. addressed some of the issues, and I want to add to what he wrote.

First, and foremost, I have always been a prolific writer. I think that my track record speaks for itself along those lines. At the same time, I’ve also made it clear that I don’t particularly enjoy practicing law, and that my writing is my outlet …

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Now this is a prime example of damned bad luck….

Civil War buff killed in blast blamed on antique munitions

By Associated Press
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 – Updated 1h ago

RICHMOND, Va. – A man who sold Civil War relics that included munitions was killed by an explosion, and residents of the neighborhood were kept out of their homes today as experts looked for more explosives.

Samuel H. White, 53, was found in his backyard Monday by neighbors who had heard the blast, Chesterfield County police said.

Police Capt. Steve Neal said that what exploded was military ordnance, possibly dating from the Civil War. Authorities found unexploded military ordnance at his house, and on Tuesday they were still collecting

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C. E. Peck of the 15th New York Cavalry, on the role of horse soldiers:

“Cavalry is the whirlwind of war. Batteries thunder and crush – – infantry forms the conflicts, surge and shock, but it is the charge of horse – – a wild erratic horse – – that seems the very tempest of the strife. Half man, half brute, it knows no fear – – an awful swell of carnage and commotion – – a terrible, relentless deluge of trampling hoofs and hewing steel. But as magnificent as are the rush and clash of the cavalry in the crucial moment of a victory, not less of danger, not less of duty, not less of service are in its …

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We have five or six Barnes & Noble stores in Columbus. A couple of them are rather small and occupy spots in strip shopping centers. One of them is quite large indeed. It’s right across the driveway from a favorite restaurant of ours for Sunday brunch. We went there for brunch today, and after eating, went across the street to the Barnes & Noble store. I wandered back to see if there was anything new in the world of Civil War history books, and was horrified to see that the Civil War section had shrunk once more, down to three shelves. It used to be an entire section of shelves and one or two in the next section, but now, …

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Warning: this is an off-topic rant that has nothing to do with the Civil War.

Today is the Daytona 500, the opening race of NASCAR season. I can’t possibly think of anything that I would want to do less than sit and watch a NASCAR race on television. Guys turning left for 2.5 hours in cars that are supposed to be stock cars, but which are anything but. I know that NASCAR is popular, but God in heaven, I cannot, for the life of me understand why. Perhaps these are my northern biases coming through, but I just don’t get it.

I cannot, for instance, fathom sitting in the grandstands having your hearing damaged watching a bunch of guys going …

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