I own the complete run of Gettysburg Magazine, all 37 issues. For those keeping score, at two issues per year, that makes 19 years’ worth of magazines. It’s the ONLY magazine that I’ve EVER purchased where I’ve kept every single issue, including North and South, where I sat on the company’s board of directors for a number of years. To date, I’ve had something like eight articles published in the magazine, including three on John Buford. I’ve been in the last two issues in a row, and I just submitted another article on the Battle of Funkstown for the July 2008 issue earlier today.

There was a gap of seven or eight years there where I didn’t submit …

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I usually try to keep my personal politics out of this blog. That I am a Jewish, liberal-leaning Democrat is no secret, but I usually don’t rant about politics or religion here. This time, however, I just can’t help myself. I apologize for doing so.

I heard about Ann Coulter’s anti-Semitic rant on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC program today for the first time. When I read it, I was absolutely horrified:

NEW YORK Appearing on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC show, “The Big Idea,” on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren’t any Jewish people and that they needed to “perfect” themselves into — Christians.

It led Deutsch to suggest that surely she …

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Here’s a hat tip to Brooks Simpson, over at Civil Warriors for bringing this one to my attention.

It would appear that some neo-Confederate die-hards have gone ahead and formed their own (unelected) Confederate government, and that they are trying to secede once again. I guess they didn’t learn their lesson the first time.

Here’s their mission statement: The Restoration of the Confederacy is a movement of the people from the bottom up and not the top down. This is not a political movement in regards to political parties, but an action of resistance and insistence upon the liberation of our nation and the departure of agencies and personnel of the United States of America whom we shall endeavor to …

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We turned in the manscript of the retreat book to Ted Savas last night. It’s hard to believe that, after all of these many years of work, it’s finally finished.

Here are some statistics about the book that you might find interesting:

–There are 18 chapters and an epilogue, along with one appendix. There is a foreword by Noah Andre Trudeau and a preface by Ted Alexander.
–Just the 18 chapters and the epilogue (does NOT include endnotes): 132,944 words.
–With the endnotes, bibliography, tours, appendix, etc., added: 191,964 words.
–There are 1,534 endnotes.
–There will be 16 maps.
–There will be approximately 50 illustrations.
–The bibliography contains over 800 entries, meaning that we looked at more than 800 sources …

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Most serious students of the Army of the Potomac are familiar with the volume of published letters of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman, a volunteer aide who served on the staff of General George Meade from the fall of 1863 until the end of the Civil War. Meade’s letters are especially insightful, and they’re also very funny in places. It was Lyman who dubbed Meade “The Great Peppery” for his explosive temper.

It’s also long been known that Lyman maintained a set of private journals that were not intended for consumption by anyone else but Lyman himself. Consequently, those journals are even more insightful and even more filled with Lyman’s biting wit and astute observations than are his letters home. For …

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One of the things that amazes me about my historical work is how threads seem to unravel as you tug on them. There have been a number of instances where one project has led directly to another.

Here’s just one example.

Sheridan’s Trevilian Raid ended on June 24, 1864, when his two divisions rejoined the Army of the Potomac at Petersburg. In the meantime, the Wilson-Kautz Raid began on June 21 and ended on July 2, 1864. The two expeditions overlapped, and one of the reasons why the Wilson-Kautz Raid was a failure was that Sheridan did not keep Hampton and the Confederate cavalry occupied as Grant expected him to. There has never been a truly detailed study of the …

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2007 has been a horrible year for us. It’s just been one unpleasant thing after another. Because of Susan’s being laid off, we didn’t get to take a vacation this year. Now that things are better, she’s got a new job and can’t take vacation time yet. Talk about a Catch-22.

On top of all of it, I am absolutely swamped–buried–with legal work. From one perspective, that’s a good thing, because it ensures cash flow, but on another, it’s hitting me with more at a time when I’m already feeling tired and burned out. I REALLY need a vacation…..

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Augie came to live with us in January 1996. He was just over six weeks old, and he weighed about 8 pounds. He was a gorgeous honey-colored golden retriever puppy. The breeder had nicknamed him Bubba because they thought it suited his personality. His mother was small, only about 50 pounds, and his father was a grand champion showdog.

Our first golden was named Caesar. It suited his personality. We decided to stay with the Roman emperor theme, so we named the new puppy Augustus, Emperor of Olde Orchard, which is the name of our neighborhood. We called him Augie for short, although the name Bubba stuck with him, and, because he was like a giant teddy bear, we also …

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As some of you know, there was a big kerfuffle a couple of years ago over the ownership of documents that were in the possession of Evander M. Law at the end of his life. The State of South Carolina claimed them, and so did the family, who wanted to auction the stuff off. Unfortunately for those of us who care about this sort of thing, the state lost, and the stuff went to auction. Here’s an article about it:

Confederate Gen. Lee’s Letters Sell for $61,000 at Auction

By Jim Davenport

09/29/2007

Associated Press

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/575/story/203509.html

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Three letters written by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee during the Civil War sold at auction for $61,000 Saturday.

The sales …

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Two more blogs appear to have bitten the dust. Neither Mike Koepke’s blog nor the Touch the Elbow blog have had new posts in more than two months. Consequently. I have deleted the links to both. If they ever resurface, I’m happy to consider linking them again. I’m especially sorry to see Touch the Elbow go. There was always good content on that blog.

I also realized that I had been remiss in not adding a link to Jenny Goellnitz’s fine blog, Draw the Sword and Throw Away the Scabbard, which I visit every day. That oversight has now been rectified.

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