I’ve become a huge fan of Roger Hunt’s work. Roger is one of the most diligent and effective researchers out there. To date, Roger has published three of the most useful books in my reference library. I discussed these books in detail in a lengthy post back in January.

Of special interest is Roger’s series of books profiling Union colonels. To date, two volumes in the series have been published. One book covers just New York. The other covers the New England states. I’ve been referring to them regularly during the writing of our study of the retreat from Gettysburg, and the photos found in these books are also very useful. Other than that the prior publisher had priced them …

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WordPress tells me whenever somebody links to my blog. Today, one popped up for a blog I’d never heard of, called Mounted Valor, a name I did not recognize. So, I went and checked it out.

It turns out to be Chris Swift’s new blog, which, unlike his old blog, deals only with Civil War cavalry. I have changed the link in the blogroll, which was to his old blog, Yankee Tirade. That link is dead, and I was planning on deleting it this weekend. I’m glad to see that Chris is back and resuming his studies of Civil War cavalry. Welcome back, Chris.

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I am in Leesburg, Virginia on business today and part of tomorrow. Consequently, I got together with fellow blogger Dimitri Rotov for dinner this evening in downtown Leesburg. We ate at a very interesting place suggested by Dimitri. It’s called The Green Tree, and it features menu items based on 18th Century recipes.

The meal was excellent, the wine dry and fruity, and the dinner conversation delightful. If you’re ever going to be in the area, be sure to look Dimitri up. He makes for an excellent dinner companion.

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Sean Dail’s comment to last night’s post got me thinking about the whole concept of speaking to promote one’s books concept of marketing. I’ve done a tremendous amount of this over the course of the last ten years. I’ve always taken the attitude that when I speak, I have a room full of potential book buyers in front of me. Sometimes, people do buy, but more often than not, they don’t. Some groups are better about it than others, and some are downright terrible about it.

I rarely charge other than some travel money for speaking engagements for this reason. Don’t get me wrong–if it’s part of a commercial enterprise, then I fully expect to get my fair share of …

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Every March, Liberty University, located in Lynchburg, Virginia, has a Civil War conference that was apparently started by Rev. Jerry Falwell himself, who evidently had an interest in the Late Unpleasantness.

Now, it bears noting that Liberty is a Southern Baptist university with a religious orientation, and it is also intensely conservative, in keeping with the religious and political philosophy of its founder, Reverend Falwell. Let’s also keep in mind that I’m a Jewish lawyer and liberal Democrat from Philadelphia. In short, I am the anti-Falwell.

Today, upon the recommendation of Stephen W. Sears, I was invited to be one of the presenters at next spring’s conference at Liberty, which will feature the Gettysburg Campaign. So far, Kent …

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I saw something this evening that I never thought I would ever see again. I saw my father walk, without the assitance of either a walker or a cane. And I saw him walk remarkably well, considering that it’s only been nine weeks and the severity of the stroke. He’s a testament to resiliency and hard work.

His speech is still garbled, and he’s suffering from global aphasia, and I doubt it will ever be completely clear again as a result. However, I can understand the majority of what he says, and can guess at most of it from context.

All things considered, it could have been much, much worse, and it did my soul a lot of good …

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After being gone for too long, Brett Schulte’s back. And he’s back with a great idea. Brett has asked me, as well as several others, to participate in his new group blog, TOCWOC, which stands for The Order of Civil War Obsessively Compulsed – Amateurs with Attitude!

Fear not. The vast majority of my rantings will continue to occur here. This will always be my home, although I may cross-post some things from time to time. I also may post there exclusively from time to time, but that’s a good thing. It gives all of you another blog to read. 🙂

I always really appreciated Brett’s insights, and was very sorry to see him stop blogging. I was very …

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I have a little bit of attention deficit disorder. It means that I tend to have a short attention span and that my mind often wonders unless I have something specific to focus on. I am able to focus to the point of exclusion of everything else when I need to do so, but I need a little bit of distraction to do so. That’s why I usually have the radio playing in my office during the day, since that little bit of distraction allows me to concentrate.

I had one of those moments today when I didn’t have anything specific to do and allowed my mind to wander a bit. Next thing I know, instead of thinking about my …

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My recent rant apparently rankled Marc Leepson, the author of a recent book on the Battle of Monocacy. Evidently, he tried to post a comment to my rant, and failed for whatever reason. Consequently, he tracked me down through my professional website and sent me an e-mail through the “contact me” feature.

So that nobody can accuse me of censorship of comments or of not permitting Mr. Leepson the opportunity to respond, here is the e-mail verbatim (although I have left out his telephone number and personal e-mail address, both of which the form requires):

Name : Marc Leepson
email : XXXXXXXXXX@aol.com
phone : (XXX) XXX-XXXX
comments : I tried submitting this as a post to your blog, but it …

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The other day, I received this e-mail from old friend Jim Morgan, who heads the battlefield guide program at the Ball’s Bluff battlefield in Leesburg, Virginia:

I’m delighted to announce that all the new, updated, and corrected historical markers are in.  The original 16 which, even if correct, were weathered and not looking very good, have been replaced with new ones, plus four completely new signs help tell the story even better. 

Two new interpretive trails have been cut as well, and three of the original signs moved to new locations on them.  These trails are somewhat more user friendly and on the new “Jenifer trail” the sign related to Lt Col Walter Jenifer, who commanded the small Confederate cavalry …

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