I have always bought into the school of thought that George B. McClellan made absolutely atrocious use of his cavalry. That’s the conventional wisdom, and in some ways, it’s a legitimate criticism. Instead of having his mounted units serve together as cohesive units during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, he instead split up regiments and parceled them out, a company here and a company there, doing messenger and orderly duty, and not performing the traditional role of cavalry–scouting, screening, and reconnaissance. That is the conventional version of McClellan’s use of the cavalry. However, further digging has persuaded me that accepting that version dramatically underestimates the role that the cavalry played during his tenure in command of the Army of the Potomac.

As one example, McClellan used a cohesive command–the Cavalry Reserve–on the Peninsula, and, for the most part, it acquitted itself well. The Cavalry Reserve, consisting of the U. S. Army’s Regular cavalry regiments and supplemented by the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, performed very well, particularly during the Fifth Corps’ combined arms operation that led to the Battle of Hanover Court House in May 1862. Then, the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry did some good work during the Maryland Campaign, and particularly at places like Quebec School House, where Federal horsemen gave Wade Hampton all he wanted. To be sure, his use of the cavalry was far from perfect–the failure to use any of his cavalry to picket the Harpers Ferry Road at Antietam is a glaring error that may have cost him an even greater success at Antietam. Instead, he used his cavalry to make a mounted charge across a bridge over Antietam Creek in an effort to capture or drive off some enemy artillery. While this was a decent use of cavalry pursuant to traditional Napoleonic tactics, it was not a good use of his horse under the circumstances.

At the same time, it’s clear to me that McClellan learned as he went along. I’ve never really looked at the period between Antietam and McClellan’s relief on November 7 before, but it’s very pertinent to my work on Ulric Dahlgren, so I’ve been examining it in some detail. When I looked at this period in detail, I discovered that the Union cavalry actually performed quite well in the Loudoun Valley during this period. Day after day, the Federal horse took on Jeb Stuart’s vaunted cavalry, and fought it to a standstill. It was hard, heavy fighting, and the Union troopers acquitted themselves quite well. Familar names such as George D. Bayard, David M. Gregg, and Alfred Pleasonton came to prominence during this period. Although Bayard had only a few weeks to live, the others had long careers in the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps and left their mark on the Union mounted arm. There’s not much out there on this period; Pat Brennan published an article that addressed this period in detail in a 1999 issue of Blue & Gray Magazine, and Pat–a cavalry guy–did an excellent job of documenting the relentless cavalry fighting that took place.

Most importantly, this period reflects that McClellan made good use of his mounted arm to perform the traditional role of cavalry–scouting, screening and reconnaissance–and that these men did an excellent job of screening his advance. It was, in fact, reminiscent of the fighting that took place on the same ground in the Loudoun Valley in June 1863, just a few months later. It is, therefore, clear to me that I have been unfair to George McClellan in the past, and that I need to be more open-minded about his use of cavalry. In fact, once he got past the Peninsula Campaign, he did rather well with his maturing mounted arm, the failure to picket the Harpers Ferry Road being the one really notable exception.

By contrast, Ambrose E. Burnside really was atrocious with his use of cavalry. The fact that there were exactly three casualties in the Union cavalry out of more than 13,000 suffered in the Battle of Fredericksburg is a pretty good reflection of just how badly he did. Bayard was one of the three, and his mortal wound was the result of bad luck–he was struck by a shell fragment while at Sixth Corps headquarters. When Bayard is removed from the equation, this means that there were exactly TWO Union cavalry casualties during the Battle of Fredericksburg. Clearly, Burnside was the worst of all of the Army of the Potomac’s commanders, not McClellan, when it comes to the use of cavalry.

It just goes to show you that the conventional wisdom is not always right, or if it is, it is an oversimplification of a complex issue that deserves a more detailed and more thorough examination. I’m glad that I have undertaken that task and come to different conclusions as a result.

Continue reading

As my regular readers know, I am working on writing a biography of Ulric Dahlgren. I’ve reached an especially interesting phase of his brief but controversial life that demonstrates, in a nutshell, the paradox that was Ulric Dahlgren. On November 7, 1862, Franz Sigel ordered Dahlgren to take 100 hand-picked cavalrymen and go on a reconnaissance in force into the town of Fredericksburg. Making a ride of 50 miles, Dahlgren boldly dashed into the town on November 9, learned the enemy dispositions, skirmished with Confederate cavalry, and then, on the way out of town, burned the Aquia Creek & Fredericksburg Railroad bridges over Potomac and Accokeek Creeks. He then withdrew and made it safely back to Sigel’s headquarters, with a loss of 1 killed and 4 missing. It was a bold and daring raid that contributed accurate intelligence to Burnside as he began his movement toward Fredericksburg. However, he had not been ordered to burn the bridges. Maj. Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman, who commanded the troops assigned to the defenses of Washington, to which Sigel’s Eleventh Corps was assigned, endorsed and forwarded Dahlgren’s report of this action, with this note: “Respectfully forwarded. A very gallant affair. The burning of the bridges was very unnecessary.”

In fact, it was not only unnecessary, it ended up harming Burnside’s efforts to take the town of Fredericksburg and then caused problems for Herman Haupt and the U. S. Military Railroads. Thus, Dahlgren’s Fredericksburg raid was a mixed bag. It was a bold dash into the town that brought back important military intelligence, but at the same time, it ultimately created problems because he exceeded his orders. This episode plainly foreshadowed the sort of scenario that not only cost him his life in 1864, it also triggered one of the Civil War’s greatest controversies, which still rages to this day.

All of this got me thinking about the ultimate issue of whether an officer who takes the initiative and exceeds his orders, and ultimately causes problems as a consequence, is a problematic officer. In Dahlgren’s case, I think that he was. I think that, in spite of his obvious courage and talent, he tended to be a bit of a cowboy. For instance, after years of evaluating the question of the so-called Dahlgren Papers found on his body when he was killed, I have come to the conclusion that it’s quite likely that he cooked up the scheme to kidnap and assassinate Davis and his cabinet on his own, that he didn’t tell anyone (although it is possible that he told–and got approval from–Stanton), and that in so doing, he was exceeding his orders. It’s the burning of the bridges at Fredericksburg on a much larger scale.

In a heirarchical organization such as an army–which depends on discipline and the very concept of subordinate officers obeying the lawful orders of their superiors–there is not a lot of room for cowboying. In fact, an insubordinate junior officer, no matter how talented, has no value to an army if that officer cannot be relied upon to obey the lawful orders of his superior. Such is the case with Nathan Bedford Forrest, whom I have demonstrated was largely useless in any capacity but independent command because he refused to serve under almost anybody else’s orders.

At the same time, officers have to have some latitude to interpret and apply their orders as dictated by circumstances. If, for instance, an objective has already been destroyed, or cannot be reached for whatever reason, that officer must then do what he can in order to comply with at least the spirit of his orders, if not the letter of them. Army doctrine teaches this; improvisation is an important part of the training of the modern military officer.

I have, therefore, been forced to face the ultimate question with respect to Ully Dahlgren: given his well-documented tendency to cowboy, I can’t help but wonder what sort of a military career he would have had if he had survived the raid on Richmond in March 1864. In a lot of ways, I think he was like George A. Custer: courageous to a fault, who threw caution to the wind, who was a charismatic leader, but who ultimately was too tragically flawed by his own boundless ambition to fulfill the promise of greatness. Like Custer, his boundless self-confidence, courage, and boundless ambition cost him his life in combat, and both died lonely and ultimately useless deaths and suffered the mutilations of their corpses as a consequence.

All of which makes me wonder just how many other officers met the same fate with their careers…..

Continue reading

Here, in no particular order, are some things I would like to see happen in 2006 (some deal with the Civil War and some don’t. Warning for those of you who support the present occupant of the White House–there will be one blatantly political item that you probably won’t much appreciate; consider yourselves warned):

1. For the traitor Johnny Damon to hit .200 or lower, and for the Yankees to finish dead last. It couldn’t happen to a nicer team.

2. For the traitor Billy Wagner to have an ERA in excess of 6.00 and no saves and for the Mets to also finish dead last. Are you detecting a pattern here?

3. For us to have an entire year without the publication of a single book claiming to expose Robert E. Lee’s real plan for the Battle of Gettysburg.

4. For us to have an entire year without people feeling the need to develop bizarre and unsupportable theories about the Battle of Gettysburg in the misplaced hope of unlocking the secrets of that battle that have evaded all of the rest of us for 142+ years now.

5. For old friend Bud Hall to finally finish his long-needed and greatly anticipated book on the June 9, 1863 Battle of Brandy Station, and finally give this epic event the scholarly treatment it has needed for so long, and for Gordon Rhea to conclude the sixth and final volume of his epic study of the 1864 Overland Campaign.

6. For Donovan McNabb to return to the Eagles hale, hearty, and 100% again, ready to lead his team to the promised land.

7. For Mother Nature to spare important historical sites from the wrath of Category 5 hurricanes. We lose too much historically significant land as it is. We don’t need to lose important historical sites to hurricane and flood damage, too.

8. For our troops to return home safely from a war that was started based on a lie and for which we never had any business engaging in in the first place.

9. For publishers to listen to the wishes of consumers, and remember that a book can never have too many maps or too many illustrations.

10. That only GOOD, worthy, worthwhile Civil War books be published in 2006. I’m not holding my breath on this one.

11. That the Columbus Blue Jackets NOT suck. I’m DEFINITELY not holding my breath on this one.

12. That the construction of our new house and the resulting move be smooth and pain free. I know better than to hold my breath on this one.

13. That I get to visit lots of Civil War battlefields this year, including some places that I have never visited previously. I can think of a number of places I’ve never been but would like to tramp. A few come to mind: Wyse’s Fork in North Carolina, Mine Creek in Kansas, and Stones River in Tennessee. There are also the Custer Battlefield in Montana, Washita in Oklahoma, and Blue Water in Nebraska for some Indian wars-related sites.

14. That my regimental history of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry finally gets completed this year, after more than a decade of work.

15. That all of you who give their time and energy to indulging my rants have a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year filled with lots of great reading.

Continue reading

To all who give part of their day to indulge my rantings, I hope that 2006 is a happy, healthy and prosperous year for all of us, filled with lots of good Civil War books.

Happy new year!

Eric and Susan
Augie, Cleo, and Nero (the golden retriever gang)

Continue reading

I’m in the midst of writing my biography of Ulric Dahlgren. Beginning with Franz Sigel’s appointment to corps command in the Army of Virginia in June 1862, until Sigel was relieved of corps command in the Army of the Potomac in early 1863, Dahlgren served as on Sigel’s staff, and for much of that time, was Sigel’s acting chief of artillery. During October and November 1862, but especially during October, Dahlgren was particularly active, leading daring scouting missions, chasing Confederate guerrillas, and then commanding a bold dash into the town of Fredericksburg on November 9. Dahlgren particulalry distinguished himself during this period of time.

It’s an interesting period. Although there wasn’t much in the way of major fighting during this time frame, there was a lot of skirmishing, particularly cavalry skirmishing, in the Loudoun Valley. Some, in fact, have argued that this time frame truly marked the turning point for the Union cavalry and not the spring of 1863, as I have claimed in print. Stuart’s Second Ride Around McClellan occurred during this time. It’s also the period when Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s tenure as commander of the Army of the Potomac was under the heaviest scrutiny and when Abraham Lincoln became most dissatisfied with McClellan’s “slows,” as Lincoln put it. Consequently, McClellan was relieved of command on November 6, just before Dahlgren’s mad dash into Fredericksburg.

However, after a fair amount of searching, I have yet to find a detailed treatment of events (especially dealing with the tactical aspects that fall) during this period. I’ve even sent out e-mails to the discussion groups that I belong to, looking for input on books that address this period, all to little avail. That brings me to the point of this post.

Although there have been countless books written about major events, such as the Battle of Gettysburg–why in the world do we need yet another book on Pickett’s Charge, anyway–there are none on other, lengthy periods of the war where important events occurred. There are so many areas that have been done to death, and yet there are other significant areas where nothing at all has been written. The asymmetry of this can be stunning. I have tried very hard to choose topics that are off the beaten path–obscure things and events–instead of writing yet another useless account of Pickett’s Charge, or the invention of some bizarre theory in the hope of making my mark by coming up with something new on ground that’s already been plowed too damned many times. A careful review of my work will demonstrate this. When I have written about big battles like Gettysburg, I’ve selected small or obscure aspects of it. From my perspective, the more obscure the better.

Let me use one of my own books as an example. Sheridan’s second raid–and the resulting Battle of Trevilian Station–were important aspects of Grant’s Overland Campaign, but had not had any sort of a detailed treatment. There was PLENTY of excellent primary source material out there just waiting for somebody to tackle it, but it had never happened before I tackled it. I was able to cobble together a nearly 150,000 word treatment of this campaign that has been very well received, and has sold reasonably well.

Here’s another example. Until just a handful of years ago, there hadn’t been a good, modern, scholarly treatment of the Fredericksburg Campaign until two appeared in the space of one year–George Rable’s and Frank O’Reilly’s–that covered this campaign in the sort of detail it had been crying out for. The Petersburg Campaign really needs a detailed treatment–the entire campaign has never had one; only Andy Trudeau’s The Last Citadel covers the whole campaign, and that’s more of an overview than anything else. This campaign lasted 8 months, was really one of the most important phases of the war, but yet it’s been largely ignored by historians in spite of some brutal, bloody fighting. It really needs the sort of superb multi-volume treatment like the one that Gordon Rhea’s done on the previously overlooked Overland Campaign. I don’t understand why this hasn’t happened to date, but it clearly hasn’t.

Still others have gotten some attention, but cry out for a really thorough treatment. Two come to mind immediately. Until Ken Noe’s excellent Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle was published in 2001, the only detailed treatment that the Battle of Perryville had received was the God-awful and unreadable book by Kent Hafendorfer. Yet Perryville marked the high water mark of the Confederacy in the West. It needed a real treatment, and Ken finally gave it one. Or John Hunt Morgan’s Indiana and Ohio Raid of 1863, which also needs a solid tactical treatment based on real scholarship, and not on family oral history that cannot be corroborated.

Even though there have literally been tens of thousands of books published on the Civil War, there are still very large gaps in the historiography and there are still plenty of worthy topics that remain virgin, untouched territory. I would love to see someone beside me tackle some of these more obscure topics and a lot less speculation on Lee’s “true” plan at Gettysburg. Ultimately, we will all be richer for it.

Continue reading

Our friends Greg and Karel Lea Biggs are in town, visiting us from Tennessee. Greg is a vexillologist who specializes in Confederate flags. The Ohio Historical Society houses more than 350 Ohio battle flags as well as a handful of other miscellaneous flags, including a recently discovered captured Confederate battleflag which Greg cannot identify. When examined closely, you can still plainly see the blood stains on the white portions of the flag. Greg really wanted to see this flag, and made arrangements for us to have access to the flag collection today to see it. They have all been photographed, and many of them have been rendered as paintings. Photos of all of them are available on the OHS web site.

Only 16 of the Ohio battleflags have been through a full conservation procedure, and are the only ones that are displayed as a result. The ones that have been done are quite nice. One, in particular, really caught my attention. It’s the national colors of the 10th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, and this flag is nothing short of spectacular. There are a handful of other flags that are similarly preserved and similarly displayed.

Sadly, the overwhelming majority of them are in bad shape. In the 1960’s, at the recommendation of the National Park Service, the flags were glued to nylon in the hope that they would not disintegrate completely, and were then furled. The furled flags are still on their staffs. They’re stored standing upright in four large wheeled bins, and have tags on them to identify them. Some of them are in such atrocious shape that there’s nothing left of them but dust. There’s nothing to unfurl, meaning that they have been lost forever. From what I could tell, there are 15-20 of these that are in such poor condition that they’re forever lost. Virtually all of them are missing large chunks, as silk does not age or wear well. These flags are not only display, are not in the main facility of the Ohio Historical Center, and are not generally available to the public. An appointment must be made, and visitors must be escorted. You’re really not supposed to touch them, but if you do, you must wear white cotton gloves to do so.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of the flags remain furled, as they cannot be unfurled without undergoing a special treatment. Once they’re unfurled, they have to be stored flat in special cabinets. Since Union flags can be quite large (6 feet by 6 feet square), the large flags must be stored one per shelf in these special cabinets. The curator of the flags told us today that in order to unfurl and store all of the flags flat will require 24 of these huge cabinets. Each of these cabinets costs about $15,000, but the Ohio Historical Society has no budget with which to purchase them.

My thoughts on battlefield preservation are well known. We can’t afford to lose an inch of valuable land, and I continue to support battlefield preservation as I always have. However, I’ve come to really appreciate these flags, as they won’t be with us much longer unless steps are taken to preserve them. At the very least, they need to be unfurled. They can’t be unfurled until OHS has sufficient storage facilities for it to do so. For those who are interested in this topic, please feel free to contribute to OHS’s fundraising efforts. I encourage you all to do so. The land will still be there. The flags won’t.

Continue reading

Some of you might recall my mentioning that, while whiling away the hours in Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Parking Lot….oops, Airport…on our way home from California after Thanksgiving, that I had begun reading a joint biography of George S. Patton, Jr. and Erwin Rommel. The book is titled Patton and Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century by a fellow named Dennis Showalter. Showalter is the former head of the Society for Military History, and is a professor of history at Colorado College who has written several books and has a long resume. He is an expert on the Prussian military establishment, and is well-qualified, in particular, to address the life of the Desert Fox.

Given the author’s pedigree and the fascinating subject, I had very high expectations for this book. Having finally finished it last night, I unfortunately am left with the conclusion that this book is really a mixed bag. Although it is obviously not a Civil War book, I mention it because the book’s overall quality is spoiled by three of my biggest complaints: atrocious production values, not a single photograph, and not a single map.

Rommel performed some really remarkable deeds in the Tirolean Alps of Italy during World War I. Showalter spends a lot of ink and a lot pages describing these episodes in detail, but there is not a single maps. Personally, I had almost no familiarity with this theater of World War I, and REALLY would have liked to have seen some decent maps that portrayed these events to help me to understand them. Likewise, I would have liked to have seen maps of Rommel’s role in the invasion of France in 1939, and in North Africa during his tenure as commander of the Afrika Korps.

Likewise, I would have liked to have seen maps of Patton’s campaign in North Africa, his role in the invasion of Sicily, and finally of the dash across France, including his remarkable movement of a major portion of his Third Army to come to the aid of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. Again, I was left to try to recall, from memory, the geography of Europe and of Patton’s movements, and while my memory is pretty good, it’s not THAT good.

In addition, the only two photographs are images of Patton and Rommel that appear on the dust jacket to the book. There is not a single photo anywhere in the book, even though images of both of these military giants abound. There are plenty to go around, but either the author or the publisher, or, perhaps, both, dropped the ball, and left them out altogether.

Thus, while I think that the book was well-done–it’s pretty well researched, and written in a readable, conversational style that draws solid conclusions–I would have been significantly more impressed by, and ultimately more favorably inclined to recommend it to other readers, if it had contained good maps and good illustrations on top of the decent material that constitutes the book.

It’s a shame. It could have been a really great book, but without the inclusion of maps and illustrations, I can’t say that it is. Without maps and illustrations, it is, at best, a decent read that is ultimately disappointing. I hate that.

Another thing that really surprised me was that this book is so chock-full of typos, grammatical errors, and other screw-ups as to make it very difficult to read. The production values for the entire book are absolutely atrocious. How a book got into print with this many typos and grammatical errors mystifies me, especially when a distinguished academic historian is the author. Apparently, the publisher’s editorial/proofreading staff took that week off, because there simply is no evidence that they did their job. It’s sad, because these types of things really distract the reader and really harm the overall credibility of the book.

So, to conclude, this book sort of hits the grand slam of all of the things that I hate about books. That I actually finished it, given that fact, is really pretty remarkable.

Continue reading

Paul Taylor left me a most insightful comment on his experience with McFarland Publishing. McFarland published Paul’s recent regimental history of the 26th New York Volunteer Infantry.

I was just looking through McFarland’s list of titles, and there is some REALLY interesting stuff there. The company bills itself as a “publisher of reference and scholarly books,” and it shows. As Paul pointed out in his comment, they have published a number of very useful regimental histories, as well as some interestng campaign studies. I just noticed that they have what appears to be a major scholarly work on the Battle of Brandy Station slated for 2006 that I was previously unaware of, and which looks interesting.

They also have two books listed in their list of forthcoming titles by Robert P. Broadwater, whose stinker on the Battle of Bentonville has been the subject of some of my ranting here. It’s an absolutely atrocious book, so I have no reason to think that these two will be any better, either.

Here’s the thing. McFarland has very little in the way of marketing; libraries seem to be their primary niche. The following statement from the company’s website really struck me about their marketing: “McFarland successfully sells directly to individuals. Specialists, professionals and enthusiasts form an important market for many kinds of books. For applicable books, college classroom adoptions play a role in sales. Most major online book retailers carry McFarland books—you may wish to keep a watch on your book’s listings. Chain book retailers will carry McFarland books in their system for special order, but are unlikely to stock books in stores (the same applies to the majority of our academic publisher peers). Specialty bookshops, on the other hand, can make suitable arrangements with McFarland. We welcome sales tips from authors for the latter. If you know of a mail-order distributor, museum shop, specialty bookshop, or internet-based book dealer that handles a specialized line, please provide addresses.” In other words, unless you’re willing to go and out and sell the hell out of your book by yourself, you’re pretty much out of luck. At least some university presses do a decent job of marketing.

Another issue, as Paul quite correctly points out, is that McFarland’s primary market sector is libraries, meaning that pricing is less of a concern than with normal commercial publishing houses. Consequently, most of their titles run in the range of $45-65 or so, and I am concerned that the price will scare off most potential buyers. This is basically a wash, irrespective of whether McFarland does the book or a university press does–university presses have the same pricing issues. There’s little enough demand for this book, so it’s something to be seriously concerned about.

Finally, there is the issue of timing. As I have pointed out here previously, university presses take forever to get stuff out. I have no idea whether McFarland does. So, the issue is how to handle this trade-off.

So, there’s a real trade-off here. They do some really good books that might not otherwise find a publisher, but outside of libraries, their marketing is pretty much non-existent. Talk about a Hobson’s choice….

I’m a little over one-third of the way through my new biography of Ulric Dahlgren. I went into this project knowing that it would be no small challenge to find the appropriate publisher for this work. Like so much of what I do, it’s a topic that interests me and that I find compelling, so I tackled it. Because I tend to choose topics that nobody else has, it means that the market is completely untested. And let’s face it–this book is not going to make the New York Times best seller list any time in my lifetime. So, I have to find a publisher for it, and it looks like my choices are a university press or McFarland. Neither excites me much, but I’m enough of a realist to know that there aren’t too many other options out there. So, let me ask my gentle readers your opinion–and you will be part of an active decision on where to shop this manuscript–where should I pitch this thing?

I look forward to your feedback, and thank you to Paul Taylor for inspiring this particular post.

Continue reading

I have a great love for regimental histories. I buy a lot of them. Mostly, I need them for my work, but I really enjoy having them around. I like knowing what specific units did during the course of their careers, and I also find having the rosters, etc., useful. It really puts a human face on the men who fought the Civil War.

The vast majority of regimental histories were written in the thirty-five years between the end of the war and the end of the Nineteenth Century. Most of them were written by veterans of their units, and they were primarily written for the men of those particular regiments as a chronicle of their service during the war. Often, those original regimental histories were written by the regimental chaplains. The best ones include both a narrative of the regiment’s service as well as anecdotal material by the soldiers who served in the unit. They’re often filled with photos of the members of the unit. One of the best I’ve ever seen is the history of the 10th New York Cavalry, which includes photos of the members of the regiment, an excellent narrative, a complete roster, and lots of good anecdotal stuff.

One of the worst, by contrast, was that of the 3rd Indiana Cavalry. The 3rd Indiana is an unusual regiment. Half of it served with the Army of the Potomac, while the other half served in the Western Theatre. It made it difficult to document the regiment’s service, and the regimental history, by a fellow named William N. Pickrell, and published in the first decade of the Twentieth Century, doesn’t consist of much besides reports included in the Official Records. It is, for the most part, useless. Even though it’s incredibly rare, it’s okay, because it has little value.

So, here’s the problem. The old books, which were not printed with acid-free pape, tend to be extremely brittle and very fragile. The bindings often are delicate and falling apart. So, while I need the material, I’m afraid to use the books because they’re investments and I’m afraid of damaging them. Consequently, I’ve found a solution. I buy almost exclusively reprints, unless I find a great deal on a first edition, or it’s one that has special meaning to me (I own two of the 750 copies of the 1868 regimental history of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry published, including the personal copy of the author, Chaplain Samuel L. Gracey). The reprints are inexpensive enough that it doesn’t much matter if I mess one up, or if I write in it. Plus, I can usually buy three or four reprints for the price of one first edition. From a practicality standpoint, that’s a no-brainer for me.

There are three great sources for reprints. My current favorite is Ward House Books, a division of Higginson Books. They do replica reprints of the original editions, and are very faithful reprints. They’re inexpensive, no frills books–they’re done with simple library bindings–done print-on-demand, so it takes 3-4 weeks to get them when you place an order. Once or so a year, they have a significant sale with a 25% discount. They have some really rare titles–such as the history of the 1st New York Dragoons, which is one of the most rare of all of the regimental histories–and provide an invaluable service.

Then, there’s Jim McLean’s Butternut and Blue of Baltimore, which has done replica reprints of numerous Union and Confederate regimental histories that cannot be found anywhere else. Jim has done some excellent and very rare books such of Lt. George W. Beale’s A Lieutenant of Cavalry in Lee’s Army.

Finally, there’s Morningside House of Dayton, Ohio. This is a mixed bag at best. On one hand Morningside has done some fabulous books that cannot be found anywhere else, such as Dr. Abner Hard’s regimental history of the 8th Illinois Cavalry. Again, the books are no-frills and don’t have dust jackets. They’re functional but certainly not pretty. On the other hand, if you buy from Morningside, it means that you have to deal with the owner of the company, who is proud to be called an S.O.B. He is his company’s own worst enemy, which is a shame, because he was the trailblazer for the replica reprint business.

My own companies, first VanBerg Publishing, and then its successor, Ironclad Publishing, have done some high quality reprints of some very rare regimental histories–the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, the 9th Massachusetts Battery, the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry, and the 124th New York Volunteer Infantry. The problem is that we have found that these books don’t move quickly and that it’s very difficult for us to make back the money that we invest in them in anything close to a reasonable amount of time. Consequently, we made a concerted business decision to stop doing regimental histories about two years ago, and will no longer be doing them, simply because we find that they’re not a good investment for us.

Finally, there are some pretty good modern regimental histories being published, such as Rod Gragg’s study of the 26th North Carolina Infantry, as well as other good recent titles.

A major portion of my library is devoted to regimental histories. One can never have too many.

Continue reading

To all of you who give a little bit of your day to indulge my rantings, please accept my wishes to you and yours for a joyous holiday season–whichever holiday you may celebrate–and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year filled with lots of good Civil War books. 🙂

Eric and Susan
Augie, Cleo, and Nero (the golden retriever gang)

Continue reading