Army Magazine is the official publication of the Association of the United States Army. It is a well-respected publication directed toward the military professional. Our book was reviewed in the current issue, and the review is quite flattering indeed. The reviewer is a retired colonel with a Ph.D. who was a history instructor at West Point named Cole C. Kingseed.

Here is the review:

BLAME EXAMINED: STUART’S ROLE AT GETTYSBURG
Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg. Eric J. Wittenberg and J. David Petruzzi. Savas Beatie. 428 pages; maps; photographs; appendices; index; $32.95.
Reviewed by Col. Cole C. Kingseed, U.S. Army retired

When a number of Southern historians and former Confederate generals examined the …

Continue reading

Last Monday, I posted about my dilemma about what to do with my first book, Gettysburg’s Forgotten Cavalry Actions. I asked you for your opinions on three options:

1. Seek a new publisher for it as originally written.

2. Do a complete rewrite that adds some of the new material that has surfaced in the years since the book was published, add a walking/driving tour, and tighten up the prose.

3. Bag the whole thing altogether, let it go out of print, and save the rework for the three-volume history of the cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign that J. D. and I are planning.

A total of 17 of you responded here, and J. D. chimed in by e-mail. …

Continue reading

Here’s another in my periodic series of forgotten cavalrymen. I wish I had thought to name this series “Fiddler’s Green”, as Don Caughey calls this sort of profile on his blog. Ah, well.

Robert Horatio George Minty was born in Westport, County Mayo, Ireland, on December 4, 1831. His father was born in Ireland and his mother was born in Scotland. His father was in the British Army. In 1848, Minty entered the British Army as an Ensign and served five years in the West Indies, Honduras and the west coast of Africa. On November 11, 1857, he married Grace Ann Abbott of London, Ontario, Canada at St Paul’s Cathedral in Port Sarnica, Ontario, Canada, where his first child, Nan …

Continue reading

My first book was published in 1998. It’s titled Gettysburg’s Forgotten Cavalry Actions, and was published by Thomas Publications of Gettysburg. The book covers Farnsworth’s Charge, Merritt’s fight on South Cavalry Field, and the Battle of Fairfield, all actions that took place on day three of the Battle of Gettysburg. Old friend Rick Sauers talked me into doing it as a book. I had written an article on Merritt’s fight that was published in Gettysburg Magazine and one on Fairfield that was published in America’s Civil War, and my original intent was to complete the trilogy with an article on Farnsworth’s Charge.

Rick talked me into compiling it all together and publishing it as a book. It’s short–only …

Continue reading

I received the following press release from old friend Thomas D. “Hokey Tom” Perry about his newest book on the life of Jeb Stuart today:

For Immediate Release: Ararat, Virginia, February 6, 2007

Tom Perry is pleased to announce publication of Stuart’s Birthplace: The History of the Laurel Hill Farm. The book is available beginning on February 6, 2007, J. E. B. Stuart’s 174th Birthday.

Perry Comments: “In 1986 Professor Emory Thomas published his biography of J. E. B. Stuart Bold Dragoon, the first biography in nearly thirty years since Burke Davis’s The Last Cavalier. After reading this book I remembered how prominent Stuart’s place in our nation’s history really was and all the famous people and events he touched …

Continue reading

Here’s a link to the story on yesterday’s event that ran in the Carroll County Times newspaper today.

Continue reading

Tomorrow is my 46th birthday. I can recall times that don’t seem all that long ago when the very concept of turning 46 was inconceivable; that was old age, for heaven’s sake. Evidently–hopefully–that’s not the case. Some days, I feel old as the hills but only slightly younger than dirt, but other days, I feel 18 again. It all depends.

What’s particularly interesting is that tomorrow is also my good friend and co-author, J. D. Petruzzi’s birthday. J. D. is four years younger than I am, but I find it really remarkable that we share the same birthday.

Perhaps our writing partnership was pre-ordained. 🙂

Happy birthday, J. D. You may be younger, but I still have more hair. 🙂…

Continue reading

I left yesterday afternoon at 1:30 and arrived in Gettysburg at 7:15. I met J.D. for dinner, and then we went and had a couple of beers at the Reliance Mine Saloon. I had a very interesting conversation with Bill Frassanito about lots of things, and we were all out of there by 11:00.

We were up at 6:00 AM today, got ready, loaded up the car and headed off to The Avenue restaurant for breakfast. We headed out for Westminster (which is almost an hour drive) for the conference. Our navigator was too busy obsessing over bicycles and didn’t tell me to turn in time and we went about 7 miles out of our way. We finally got to …

Continue reading

Chris Lewis, the editor of Civil War Times Illustrated, liked my idea of an article on the connections between Ulric Dahlgren and David Herold, so I’m going to explore expanding it into a 4,000 word feature article. We’ll see how it goes, and we’ll see if there’s enough to make it worthwhile, but I’m going to give it a shot. I’ve got two other articles in various stages that need to be completed first, but then I’m going to focus hard on pulling the thing together. For now, the working title is “A Tale of Two Assassins”.

I will keep everyone posted as to progress.

Continue reading

Today marks one month since I had the cortisone shot, and I’ve had major improvement. It’s 85% better. I continue to wear a band to keep pressure on the tendons, but it feels a great deal better. I’m able to do most of my normal activities either pain free or with very minimal pain, so it’s back to normal and back to my normal blogging schedule.

Thank you very much to everyone who wrote to express their concern and best wishes for improvement. It means a lot to me, and it also helped a lot.

If history holds true, it will flare back up again in a few months, as that’s been the pattern for 25 years. For now, though, …

Continue reading