Susan, Nero, and Aurora join me in wishing each and every one of you happy holidays. Merry Christmas to all, happy Kwanzaa to those to whom it applies, and to the rest, a joyous Festivus.

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Since this is the holiday season, and giving is better than receiving, I thought I would take a moment to pass along a few holiday gift wishes. They are presented in no particular order.

–To the Civil War Preservation Trust, I wish for you unlimited funds for the continuation of the good work that you do.

–To Jenny Goellnitz, I wish for you a lifetime of Hodge-free robust good health. I have many battlefields yet to show you.

–To Michael Aubrecht, I wish for you the joy of nights of sleep uninterrupted by Jackson’s cries.

–To Duane Siskey, I wish for you a lifetime of joy living on the battlefield in Gettysburg.

–To George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, I …

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Need I say anything more?

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The Civil War Education Association is putting on some nifty programs this year. I’ve already posted about the cavalry tour I’m leading for CWA next June.

Old friend Bruce Venter, who is probably THE authority on the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid, is leading a really interesting tour for the CWEA. 1864 was a leap year, just as 2008 is, meaning that both years had a February 29. The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid began on February 28 and ended on March 1. Bruce is going to be leading a real-time tour of the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid for the CWEA, commencing on the evening of February 28 and ending on the evening of March 1.

Given my interest in the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid, I could not pass up …

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Time for another installment of my infrequent series of profiles of forgotten cavalrymen.

John Baillie McIntosh was born at Tampa Bay, Florida, on June 29, 1829. His father, James S. McIntosh, was a Colonel in the United States army, and a native of Georgia. His mother was Eliza (Shumate) McIntosh. He was the grand-nephew of a Revolutionary War general who killed Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Young John was educated at Nazareth Hall, Pennsylvania, at S. M. Hammill’s School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and at Marlborough Churchill’s Military School at Sing Sing, New York, where he received a good education. Demonstrating an inclination toward the military, his family attempted to obtain an appointment to West Point for …

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This past summer, I helped to lead a tour of the Overland Campaign with Gordon Rhea and Bobby Krick. As a consequence of writing my study of Sheridan’s second raid and the Battle of Trevilian Station, I learned a great deal about cavalry operations during the Overland Campaign. I’ve continued to study those actions and to learn more as I go.

While out walking the fields with Gordon and Bobby, and, in particular, while visiting the battlefield at Cold Harbor, I had a bit of a revelation, and that revelation serves as the cornerstone of my book idea. The combination of terrain features and technological advances meant that cavalry tactics had to change dramatically, because the terrain covered by the …

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Ted Savas is working on our retreat manuscript, getting it ready for publication. Apparently, superscripts wig out his software. Unfortunately, Word takes things like 2nd and makes the “nd” a superscript. We had to get rid of all of those superscripts for Ted. JD took the first cut at the 1200 or so endnotes and more than 800 entries of the bibliography, and I just finished taking the second run at them. It’s mind-numbing, dull work, but it’s stuff that has to be done. It took me the better part of two hours to get through all of it, but I did.

This is the sort of formatting work that I really and truly hate to do. It’s right up …

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Having finished the retreat book–I sent the illustrations and some of the maps to Ted Savas on Thursday, and JD sent the rest out the same day–and having finished the Dahlgren book and found a home for it, I’m regularly being asked what next?

I thought I would take a moment to answer the question. First, and foremost, I have a couple of articles to finish up. We’re doing an article on Monterey Pass for next year’s Gettysburg edition of Blue and Gray magazine, and we’re also wrapping up an article on Lt. Col. Benjamin Franklin Carter of the 4th Texas Infantry, who was mortally wounded during the fighting for Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, and who then …

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Today is a very sad day for the National Pastime. Former Senator George Mitchell’s 408 page report on the use of steroids in Major League Baseball was released today. The entire report can be downloaded for free in any number of places.

Some of the game’s biggest names were implicated in the report. 85 players were named, including MVP’s, 31 All Stars, Cy Young Award winners, and, most interestingly, 16 members of the New York Yankees. Sadly, the most famous name (beside Barry Bonds, that is) is that of the Rocket–yes, Roger Clemens himself. Clemens, with 7 Cy Young Awards, more than 350 victories, and often considered to be THE greatest pitcher of the modern era, has long been a …

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