I took a suggestion from Steve Stanley and returned the black and white Nook and exchanged it for the color version. The color version scales the PDF’s much better, and it also has a larger storage capacity than the black and white version. With the 8GB micro-SD card plugged in, the device now has 16GB worth of storage capacity. The display is 7 inches, as opposed to the 6 inch display for the black & white unit. The color version is larger, and weighs a good bit more, but the color is vivid.

Downside: The black and white unit comes with free built-in 3G wireless as well as built-in WiFi. The Nook Color does not have the 3G wireless capacity, only the built-in WiFi, which means that it can’t be used in as many places.

I’m also having a real challenge finding a decent case for the thing. There aren’t many out there, and I don’t like most of them. A lot of the makers say they’re coming, but I need something in the interim. I really liked the M-Edge case that I had for the black and white version, but it’s not available for the color version yet. I guess I will just have to be patient and wait.

So far, I am pleased with the upgrade. I’m looking forward to messing with it further.

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I was shocked today to learn that this little old blog was named THE highest ranked Civil War blog on the Internet by Online Courses.net, which is quite an unexpected honor. I had no clue, and frankly had no such expectation of such an honor, given that I took a long hiatus from blogging and have significantly cut back on my posting frequency from the first four years of the blog. I’m very flattered to be given such an honor, and am humbled by it.

Congratulations to everyone else who made the list, which also shows me that I have some serious adjustments to make to my blogroll this weekend. More on that later.

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Harold Jackson is the editorial page editor for The Philadelphia Inquirer, the paper that I grew up reading. He is an African-American, and here is his take on whether to celebrate or commemorate the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War:

Commemorate, don’t celebrate Civil War’s 150th

By Harold Jackson

Inquirer Opinion Columnist
A number of years ago while in Biloxi, Miss., on assignment for the Baltimore Sun to report on the Gulf Coast’s casino industry, I took advantage of some down time to visit Beauvoir, the final home of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.

Only a handful of other visitors were there on that chilly, early fall day. They stared at me as much as they did the antique furniture and memorabilia in the antebellum house built in 1852. No doubt they were curious as to why a black man might be paying homage to Davis.

I wasn’t. I was there to see if there were any signs in Davis’ artifacts of his mentality in leading a rebellion to preserve an economic system based on the capture, sale, and further subjugation of fellow human beings who just happened to be of a different skin color.

I didn’t find any answers. But that day comes to mind now as I look at the ways the former Confederate states are observing this year’s sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Adding poignancy to the moment is the fact that they are making plans to commemorate the rebellion fought to perpetuate slavery even as the nation celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Martin Luther King’s Birthday federal holiday.

Special events are being held in at least 21 states, including Pennsylvania, to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which officially began when secessionists fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., on April 12, 1861.

A week ago, cadets from the Citadel, South Carolina’s historic military college, fired cannons on Morris Island in Charleston Harbor to reenact the January 1861 shelling of a ship that had tried to reinforce U.S. troops at Fort Sumter. That’s another site I visited years ago, looking for answers in the ruins to explain the war that had begun there. I didn’t find any.

In my home state of Alabama, Civil War reenactors are planning to parade through Montgomery to the state Capitol on Feb. 19 to re-create the swearing-in of Davis. They will also raise a Confederate flag, but not on the main pole of the Capitol dome, which is only a stone’s throw from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.

The Confederate flag did fly on the dome’s pole for about 30 years until 1993, when black legislators won a lawsuit that ended the practice that had begun during the civil-rights era. “I’d love to see it up there, but that’s not going to happen,” said Thomas Strain Jr., a board member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Mississippi began its commemoration of the Civil War this month with a reading at Vicksburg National Military Park of that state’s Ordinance of Secession and a reenactment of rebels in 1861 firing from the bluffs of Vicksburg on a commercial steamboat that they believed was carrying U.S. troops.

In observing the war’s sesquicentennial, Virginia is taking pains to note that although Richmond succeeded Montgomery as the capital of the Confederacy, the state originally voted by a 2-1 ratio not to secede. Paul Levengood, president of the Virginia Historical Society, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the moment of secession should be recognized, but not celebrated.

Commemorate, don’t celebrate. I like that perspective for how the former Confederate states should observe the war’s anniversary. I know, however, that there are people who will use this opportunity to again try to spin history to perpetuate the lie that the war wasn’t about slavery, that it was about states’ rights.

OK, but the right that the rebel states wanted so badly was to continue slavery.

It’s understandable that people want to justify their ancestors’ participation in a war. Even today, people are trying to rationalize their sons’ and daughters’ fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan when they’re not really sure they should be over there.

Some months ago, I was on an airplane leaving Killeen, Texas, home of Fort Hood, and heard two fellow passengers discussing the wars we are in. The women were very proud of their husband and son in the military. But the wife, almost in the same breath in which she declared they “are fighting for us,” admitted she didn’t know why our troops were still there.

The answer will be left to the writers of history. Let’s hope they do better than the numerous book writers who romanticized the Confederacy and made slavery seem like a benign institution in which the benevolence of good masters kept people who otherwise were incapable of fending for themselves from dying of starvation.

A recent article in the Anniston, Ala., Star noted that for decades after the Civil War, the United Daughters of the Confederacy had provided an approved list of textbooks for Alabama public schools. Students were taught that the Confederates had fought for a noble cause but lost. “The South lost the war, but they won the history,” Jacksonville State University professor Jennifer Gross told the Star, quoting a past teacher.

Through the end of this year, we will see various attempts to win the history, to obscure the truth that led to the Southern states’ secession, to ignore that the Civil War’s aftermath included a brutal backlash against black Americans for having been the catalyst for the South’s pain, to glorify soldiers who fought on the wrong side of glory.

Speaking of glory, one of my most prized possessions is something I bought during my Charleston visit, which included a guided tour of Fort Sumter – a copy of a Thomas Nast engraving for Harper’s Weekly depicting the 54th Massachusetts regiment’s ill-fated charge at Fort Wagner. Led by white officers, the 54th was an otherwise all-black unit.

In this sesquicentennial year of the Civil War, my thoughts will be on those who, like the men of the 54th, fought to preserve the Union and end slavery. And I’ll celebrate the soldiers in the civil-rights movement who followed them, including King, many of whom also gave their lives in the fight for freedom and equality.

In reading this, I can understand Mr. Jackson’s viewpoint. As an African-American, his focus on slavery as THE cause of the Civil War is completely understandable, and I completely agree with his statement that it is appropriate to commemorate but not to celebrate the Civil War. However, I have some different thoughts on this issue.

There is no question that slavery was probably the most important issue that triggered the Civil War, but it surely was not the only one. To say that the war was about slavery alone simply does not do it justice, nor does it reflect the feelings/sentiments of the many Southerners who fought not to perpetuate slavery but to defend their states and to pursue a vision of states rights that they shared. There certainly were plenty of Southerners who fought for the Confederacy who never owned slaves. To simply lump all Southerners into a single category of advocates for slavery is unfair and is likewise historically inaccurate.

I do agree that there was nothing to celebrate in our great national blood-letting. However, the sacrifices of both sides should be commemorated, and the moment of secession needs to be commemorated as the turning point in the development of this country. As a member of the Governor of Ohio’s Advisory Commission on the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, I can attest to the fact that we have wrestled with this issue as recently as last week, when we had a spirited and lengthy discussion about what role the Confederate flag should play in events that have the imprimatur of the Commission. This is an issue that should intrigue anyone with even a passing interest in these events.

This op-ed column plainly shows that there are many ways in which we Americans remember the Civil War. I’m not saying that he’s wrong, as he’s entitled to his opinion. I will, however, say that I disagree with some of what he says. My disagreement, though, does not make his opinion any less valid than mine. Let us hope that as the Sesquicentennial unfolds, we can have civil discussions about what it means and commemorate the event that made this nation into the United States of America.

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This article from Newsweek is one of the best discussions of why we fight the good fight to preserve our Civil War battlefield heritage, as well as spelling out the reasons why we can never, ever let our guard down. The fight will go on…..

Battle Over the Battlefields
One hundred and fifty years after the start of the Civil War, we’re still fighting. This time it’s development vs. preservation—and development’s winning.

A casino could soon sit near the Gettysburg battlefield, the bloodiest encounter on American soil. A Walmart supercenter may shadow the Wilderness battlefield in Virginia where Gen. U. S. Grant kept his headquarters when he first fought Gen. Robert E. Lee. And Washington, D.C.’s suburban sprawl is slowly strangling the rural lands where the Civil War’s first crucial battles were fought. It’s an ironic situation: as battlefield sites across the country prepare for an expected onslaught of visitors connected to the Civil War’s 150th anniversary, many of them are shrinking away, acre by acre.

April 12 will mark the sesquicentennial of the start of the war, and governments and citizens across the country are gearing up to commemorate it. Visitation at Civil War–related national parks has already been on the rise, increasing 6.4 percent between 2008 and 2009 after mostly flat numbers in prior years. The National Park Service has reworked its approach to teaching the war’s history to make it more focused on causes and effects. In anticipation of the anniversary, PBS plans to re-air Ken Burns’s landmark documentary on the war, and The New York Times and The Washington Post have already launched special commemorative blogs and news coverage. All the while, however, development at sites around the country is destroying Civil War battlefields at a frantic rate—30 acres a day, according to the Civil War Trust (CWT), a leading heritage conservation group—fast enough to eat up what’s left of the Gettysburg battlefield park in just seven months. “[Battlefield visitors] don’t want to see the parking lot where their ancestors once fought that’s now a shopping center,” says Jim Campi, policy director of CWT. “They want to walk through the woods and see the cannon and the fence lines.”

This month, two high-profile conflicts over further development on the sites of major battles will come to a head. Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board officials are expected to decide whether to allow a casino several miles southwest of the Gettysburg battlefield.. The Mason-Dixon Resort and Casino has become a cause célèbre for Civil War buffs, who have held it up as the best example of crass commercialism making inroads into the “hallowed ground” where more than 51,000 soldiers died. And in Virginia, a judge will hear arguments in a suit that aims to prevent the planned Walmart that is—depending on whom you ask—either adjacent to or on the Wilderness battlefield. These two standoffs are part of a larger debate that raises many of the same questions as the mosque controversy in lower Manhattan: What constitutes hallowed ground, what can you build near or on it, and how soon is too soon?

“There has to be a reasonable balance,” says James McPherson, the foremost living Civil War historian and professor emeritus of history at Princeton. “If you preserved every square foot of battlefield in Virginia, there wouldn’t be much land left. There’s a tendency among preservationists to want to save everything, but realistically there have to be compromises.”

One place McPherson isn’t willing to compromise, however, is the Virginia Walmart, a 140,000-square-foot supercenter the company wants to build in Orange County on a parcel that’s been zoned for commercial use for 37 years. The bloody May 1864 encounter fought there was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. In Grant’s first battle since becoming chief of the U.S. Army, he pounded Lee and began driving him south toward Richmond. Historians say his army’s “nerve center,” including his own headquarters, was located on and near the Walmart site, which is also across the street from the entrance to the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

In August 2009, the Orange County board of supervisors issued a special-use permit for Walmart to build its store, but with several conditions—including setting the building back from the road, traffic mitigation, and other safeguards to reduce the project’s impact on the park. That wasn’t enough for historians, who say shrubs may block the view from the highway, but won’t prevent a huge store from destroying the landscape. As a result, the pushback against Walmart’s plans has been especially fierce. The nonprofit preservation group Friends of Wilderness Battlefield has sued the board of supervisors, Walmart, the developer, and the property owner in an attempt to stop the store, and they’ve received help from McPherson, who appeared as an expert witness and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, among others. Plaintiffs say they don’t object to Walmart building in Orange County, but want it to move to a less historic spot.

The disagreement epitomizes disputes across the country: local officials, eager to spur economic growth, want to open lands for housing or commerce. In Orange County, for example, Walmart says it will create some 300 jobs, and says a survey it conducted in early 2009 found that 61 percent of residents backed its plan. But historians and preservationists fight back, saying development mars the historic value, cheapens the sacrifices made by thousands in the war, and impairs the ability of historians and visitors to understand the battles that took place. Preservationists also worry that development may actually cut into the economy: around many battlefield sites, tourism is a lucrative and sometimes dominant business—it accounted for $2.5 billion in spending in Civil War parks in 2008 alone, according to the National Parks Conservation Association—but they say modern intrusions could dilute that value and drive away tourists, resulting in a net contraction.

Conflicts like the one in Orange County are the fruits of seeds sown more than a century ago. In the years immediately following the war, most battlefields were maintained by veterans’ organizations such as the Grand Army of the Republic and the United Confederate Veterans, which played major roles in establishing parks like Gettysburg and the present-day Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (the National Park Service didn’t exist until 1916, and only took Civil War sites over from the War Department in the 1930s). As the sites became national parks, however, the scale of preservation was still minimal—the idea that urbanization would ever touch such remote farmlands seemed so absurd that park boundaries often included only historic stretches of road and significant structures. Though not formally preserved, fields remained in the same condition they had been in when Confederate and Union troops met. Now, however, urban sprawl has overtaken many of these areas, and threatens others. Once-remote parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, comprising most of the war’s eastern theater, are increasingly bedroom communities for Washington, D.C. “A lot of people have a misunderstanding that if it’s battlefield land, it’s within the boundaries of the park,” Smith laments. “We hold maybe one seventh of the battlefield. It would be totally unrealistic for us to hold all of it. We have to get the local community to understand that while we’re not going to preserve it, they do deserve to be treated with some sensitivity.”

The modern Civil War preservation movement dates back to the 1980s, when major D.C. area developer Til Hazel announced a plan to build a huge mall on part of the Manassas battlefield. The development was eventually blocked by an act of Congress that took over the land and provided Hazel compensation for it, later pegged by a court at $130 million. Since then, preservation groups have become more aggressive, led by the Civil War Trust, which has bought up 25,000 acres of land using private donations and matching grants. And there have been notable victories, especially the 2000 demolition of a much-reviled observation tower at Gettysburg, which had been erected in 1974 by a private developer on a patch of the battlefield not owned by the Park Service, over noisy objections. In another victory, CWT prevented the building of a racetrack at Brandy Station, Va., site of a major cavalry battle in 1863.

Economic strife has helped the cause, too. The housing developments that were a frequent threat to rural land have come to a halt since the collapse of the housing market—a reprieve, but by no means a guarantee, that new attempts won’t follow when the sector rebounds. Meanwhile, some landowners have turned to preservation as more lucrative than selling to developers. While there are still some 600 acres of land inside the Gettysburg park that aren’t preserved or protected, the park recently demolished two 20th-century houses acquired when the owners offered to sell them.

But in quite a few cases, it’s too late. Many of the battlefields in the western theater—including Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Georgia—are long gone. Others are hemmed in and reduced significantly; the Chantilly battlefield in northern Virginia “is a postage stamp now,” Campi says. And despite the stoppage of Hazel’s plan, the Manassas park is sliced by U.S. 29 (the Lee Highway, appropriately enough) and State Route 234.

Preservation has its skeptics, too. Proponents are often attacked as being antidevelopment, or simply of overreaching. The Gettysburg casino is, to detractors, the textbook case. Unlike the Wilderness Walmart, the proposed casino is actually five miles out of town, in neighboring Cumberland Township. If approved, the casino will include up to 500 slot machines—the smallest of three sizes allowed under state rules—and will be located at an existing resort, rather than in new, purpose-built structures. David LaTorre, a spokesman for the developer, points out that there are far more egregious infractions in the town itself. “People talk about how this is like building a McDonald’s next to Pickett’s Charge, but there is a McDonald’s there,” he says with only mild exaggeration.

The Civil War Trust remains staunchly opposed, and it’s got a host of celebrities on its side—including Ken Burns, author David McCullough, and actor Sam Waterston. The site is just too close to the battlefield, and the impact of development and traffic on the historical resources is too great, Campi says. The local community, too, is split into pro-casino and anti-casino sides—a small civil war, 150 years after the big one.

There are some interesting comments with the article on the Newsweek website.

The factual error regarding the number of casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg notwithstanding, this article makes the point that we can never rest, never stop being vigilant and diligent in protecting and preserving our heritage. I remain grateful to organizations like the Civil War Trust (which has a new name and a new logo as of last week), the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, the Brandy Station Foundation, the Trevilian Station Battlefield Foundation, and other similar organizations that are out there doing great work every day to help preserve our heritage.

Please support their efforts with your time and your dollars. Do it for the generations that will follow.

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Today saw the occurrence of an event that I’ve been waiting for since 1974. Today, I signed the publishing contract for You Stink! Baseball’s Terrible Teams and Pathetic Players, which I’ve written with my friend Michael Aubrecht. I first came up with this idea as a thirteen year old in 1974, and I can’t really describe how excited I am to finally see that dream come to fruition.

The book will be published by The Kent State University Press, and will be out in time for the 2012 baseball season.

More as things move toward publication.

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After much debate, and with some very valuable information provided by old friend Dave Powell, I took the plunge and bought a Barnes & Noble Nook yesterday. I got the black and white version largely because the color version is difficult to read in bright sunlight, and I anticipate taking the thing out into the field with me from time to time. The black and white version does quite nicely in bright sunlight. The color version also costs about $70 more than the one I bought.

The debate was whether to purchase the Nook or the Amazon Kindle. My plan was to use it for the public domain books that I download from sites like Google Book Search and Internet Archive. That way, I don’t have to spend a lot of time and money printing stuff out. Instead, I can simply access what I need on the Nook and have it there with me, either in the field, or when I’m writing. In theory, it will reduce the clutter in my work area, as I won’t need the xerox copies or the actual books surrounding me while I’m writing. It will save money on toner and paper, and will also save space, as I won’t need bookshelf space for books or three-ring binders filled with print-outs. That’s the theory, anyway.

I may also use the thing for the occasional book to read on an airplane or something like that, although I really prefer a real book in those circumstances. The jury’s still out on that one.

Dave Powell is an old friend and a Civil War historian whom I really respect. I had been debating doing this for quite a while, and finally sent Dave an e-mail the other day to ask him about this, as I seemed to remember that he had a device that he uses for precisely the same purpose as what I had in mind. Dave wrote back promptly, and his input pushed me to choose the Nook over the Kindle. I will explain why.

Both devices are very similar. Both use the e-Ink technology, so the displays are virtually identical. Both have built-in Wifi, and both have built-in free 3G wireless for downloading stuff and Internet browsing. The biggest issue is with capacity. The Kindle has decent capacity, but the problem is that the capacity cannot be expanded. The Nook has a micro-SD slot, and the device’s capacity can be increased by adding a micro-SD card. It’s up to the user to decide on the size of the card the user wishes to employ.

The reason why this is important is that things downloaded in the EPUB format are typically small files, which is why Kindle advertises it can hold like 3500 books on the device. However, EPUB has a lot of issues, many of which are poor translation into the digital format, typos, etc. It’s not entirely reliable, and you can get some funky stuff. Consequently, I prefer to use PDF’s. They’re a much more accurate translation of the original book, but they’re infinitely larger files. Because of that, the ability to expand capacity with a micro-SD card is really appealing. I put an 8GB micro-SD card into the Nook today, and that greatly expanded the device’s capacity.

The downside is that the image is a bit small (both the Kindle and the Nook have screens that are six inches on the diagonal) and the PDF print comes out a bit small. However, the reading glasses that are rarely far from my reach should alleviate that problem.

The other downside is that the Kindle came first, and the Kindle format is proprietary. Consequently, a Kindle book will not work on the Nook, and vice versa. However, because the Kindle came first, a lot of publishers only do Kindle versions and not Nook versions. Fortunately, one of my publishers, Savas-Beatie, does both Nook and Kindle versions, but that’s not always the case. That’s somewhat mitigated by the fact that my primary intent for the device is to use it for stuff downloaded in PDF format anyway. However, for some people, it is definitely a consideration.

In the end, I bought the Nook due to the expandability of capacity. We also bought Susan a Kindle at the same time, so it will be interesting to compare them and to see how it plays out as both get used. And, at under $200, if a better technology comes along that is also affordable, it will be easy enough to replace the thing with the latest and greatest toy without feeling like I’m making a big sacrifice.

I will keep you posted as to how the great experiment plays out as I proceed with my work. If anyone has a story or experience with either device to share, please feel free to weigh in.

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Let’s start the new year off with a profile of a forgotten cavalryman. It’s been too long since I last did one.

Milton Jameson Ferguson was born near Cassville, Wayne County, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1833. Friends and family called him by his middle name, Jameson. He was of Scots-Irish descent. His father, also named Milton J. Ferguson, owned a general store. He was described as “a studious young man, full of vim and vigor.” On September 21, 1854, he married Martha Jane Wellman.

In September 1853, at the young age of 20, he was admitted to the bar of Virginia and began practicing law in Wayne County. He had a busy and flourishing practice, handling litigation, estate, and real property matters. He was still engaged in the practice of law when the Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, and was considered “the foremost man of the county.” That year, he was elected prosecuting attorney for Wayne County, but he did not get to serve in the position due to the secession of Virginia. The office was declared vacant in 1862 and another man was appointed to fill the term.

In 1859, Milton and his Joseph founded a Masonic Lodge in Wayne County. He also was a member of the Wayne County Militia, and when the colonel of the militia unit retired in 1857, Ferguson succeeded him as colonel of the 167th Virginia Militia Regiment. His unit saw action at the Barboursville, VA on July 13, 1861, when the Union 2nd Kentucky Infantry advanced on the town. The approach of the Confederate infantry caused the Kentuckians to withdraw, and violence was averted.

Ferguson was called “Wayne County’s outstanding contribution to the Confederacy and the Civil War.” Ferguson was 5’11”, had gray eyes, and dark whiskers. He had one of the war’s truly spectacular beards, reaching nearly to his waist. He made quite a presentation, with his long, flowing beard parted in the middle and flying over his shoulder as he led his unit into battle.

Ferguson was captured by Union troops in July 1861 and spent a stint as a prisoner of war at Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio. In January 1862, he and another Confederate officer were exchanged for Union officers of equal rank, and Ferguson returned to duty, and began recruiting a company of cavalry. The company was mustered in on September 16, 1862, and in the coming months, Ferguson recruited five more companies, sufficient to form Ferguson’s Battalion Virginia Cavalry. In January 1863, his battalion merged with another battalion of four companies, forming the 16th Virginia Cavalry, with Ferguson as colonel of the new regiment.

The 16th Virginia Cavalry was assigned to a newly-formed cavalry commanded by Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins, a Harvard-trained lawyer who had just received his general’s star. He led his regiment is several actions, including a long raid intended to disrupt the formation of the new state of West Virginia in the spring of 1863. Jenkins’ command then joined the Army of Northern Virginia, and led the way into Pennsylvania for Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s Second Corps in June 1863. After advancing all the way to the suburbs of Harrisburg, Jenkins’ men then led Ewell’s Corps to Gettysburg. After leading Ewell’s command to Gettysburg–and probably firing the first shots of the Battle of Gettysburg–Jenkins’ Brigade was split in half. Half, under Ferguson’s command, spent July 2 and 3 doing provost duty on Seminary Ridge, guarding prisoners and protecting the Confederate route of retreat.

Jenkins led the other half out onto the Confederate far left flank on July 2, and while reconnoitering in the area of Blocher’s (Barlow’s) Knoll, was badly wounded by shrapnel from a Union artillery shell. For some reason, word never reached Ferguson that Jenkins was down and that Ferguson now had command of the brigade. Consequently, that portion of Jenkins’ brigade, left leaderless, simply drifted away and failed to picket the roads to the north and east of Gettysburg, forcing two brigades of Confederate infantry to do duty that Jenkins’ horsemen should have done. That portion of Jenkins’ Brigade that failed to picket the roads on July 2 fought on East Cavalry Field on July 3, under command of Lt. Col. Vincent Witcher of the 34th Battalion of Virginia Cavalry.

Ferguson retained command of the brigade until Jenkins returned to duty in the late fall of 1863. During that time, the brigade participated in the November 6, 1863 Battle of Droop Mountain, where Union cavalry under command of Brig. Gen. William Woods Averell defeated a combined force of Confederate infantry and cavalry under command of Brig. Gen. John Echols, and which included Jenkins’ Brigade (with Ferguson in command of the brigade). Droop Mountain was the last large-scale combat in West Virginia during the war. When Jenkins returned, Ferguson reverted to command of the 16th Virginia Cavalry.

On February 15, 1864, Ferguson and 39 of his men were captured on Laurel Creek in Wayne County by Col. George Gallup and the 14th Kentucky Infantry. Ferguson soon found himself back at Camp Chase for a second stint, and was later sent to Fort Delaware and then on to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina before he was finally exchanged in late 1864. He served out the balance of the war, and was paroled at Charleston, West Virginia at war’s end.

After the war, he returned to Wayne County and tried to return to the practice of law. Because he was not permitted to resume his practice in West Virginia as a former Confederate officer, he relocated to Lawrence, Kentucky, and was elected judge there. In 1871, the law was changed, and Ferguson returned to Wayne County and resumed practicing law there. He built one of the larges and most extensive personal libraries in West Virginia, and was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Wayne County.

He died on April 22, 1881 at the young age of 48, and was buried in the Fairview Cemetery at Fort Gay in Wayne County, overlooking the Big Sandy River. He left behind his wife Martha Jane and three children, Henry Wise, born in 1855 and also an attorney, Lynn Boyd, and Luta. Another child, Volney Howard, died at the age of 8.

Milton Ferguson did his duty to the best of his ability. He had no formal training as a soldier, and proved to be a capable regimental commander who was clearly out of his depth as a brigade commander. The breakdown in the chain of command on July 2, 1863 was inexcusable, and kept two fine, veteran brigades of Virginia infantry from participating in the attacks on East Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill that night. One can only speculate what might have happened had Ferguson taken command of the cavalry after Jenkins fell and those two veteran brigades had participated in the unsuccessful Confederate assaults that night.

Here’s to Colonel Milton Ferguson, forgotten Confederate cavalryman.

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….And so 2010 fades to black as the lights begin to shine on 2011….

2011 brings the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and I’m sure that we will have many more interesting things to discuss as it plays out.

With thanks to Kevin Levin for a GREAT idea, I’d like to give you, my readers, the last word as the year comes to an end. Please feel free to share your final thoughts for the year here.

To all of you, I wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.

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For the 1001st post on this blog, I thought I would follow Prof. Glenn LaFantasie’s lead. Glenn has gone way out on a limb, and has published a list of his top 12 Civil War books of all time. For those who don’t know of Glenn and his work, he is the Richard Frockt Family Professor of Civil War History and Director of the Institute for Civil War Studies at Western Kentucky University and a good guy.

In creating his list, Glenn set certain parameters, and mine will follow the same parameters. He began:

I’ve only included books published after World War II, which means I’m leaving out a long shelf of good books issued before the second half of the 20th century, some of which still stand the test of time. Out of necessity, I’ve narrowly defined the universe from which I have picked my top dozen.

This limitation rules out any accounts by participants, as well as the works of Douglas Southall Freeman. He continued:

For example, I’ve not included any biographies on this list — an exclusion that some may find indefensible. No series or multivolume works are included here either, which means that Allan Nevins’ majestic “The Ordeal of the Union” (eight volumes), Bruce Catton’s “Centennial History of the Civil War” (three volumes), and Shelby Foote’s very popular “The Civil War” (three volumes) are not to be found below, despite the fact that they all qualify as masterpieces.

For this reason, I have ruled out all four of the excellent volumes of Gordon C. Rhea’s outstanding study of the 1864 Overland Campaign and Cap Beatie’s volumes on the Army of the Potomac.

So, with Glenn’s criteria in mind, here is my list, which, of course, is entirely subjective and represents my opinion only:

12. Edwin C. Fishel, The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War. This book is truly unique: it discovered something entirely new and unknown and then told the story in a very effective fashion. Anyone with even a passing history in the first three years of the war needs to read and understand this book. It completely changed my perspective on a lot of things and showed how good a job the Army of the Potomac did in turning up and using good intelligence to its benefit. The stories of the Colonel George Sharpe and the Bureau of Military Information were untold for far too long.

11. Michael W. Kauffman, American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies. There is, of course, a multitude of books on the Lincoln assassination. In my humble opinion, there is none that does a better job of explaining and analyzing the conspiracy.

10. Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg: The Second Day. This book, by the former chief historian of the Gettysburg National Military Park, is perhaps the finest micro-tactical history of a Civil War battle yet written. With exhaustive detail and fine writing, Pfanz carefully details the sledgehammer Confederate assault on the Union left at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863.

9. Carol Reardon, Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory. Professor Reardon focuses on the memory of the Civil War through the microcosm of how the veterans of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg saw their experiences and shows how time distorts the accuracy of memory. This book is a must for those who study Civil War historiography.

8. Kenneth W. Noe, Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle. I’m not typically enamored of social history or of the so-called “new military history,” which incorporates social history as a major element of the narrative for the simple reason that strategy, tactics, and decision-making are what interest me, not social history. However, Ken Noe’s outstanding campaign study is perhaps the best example of the good things about the new military history that has yet been published. By carefully weaving the social history aspects into an excellent battle narrative, Ken Noe has written one of the best studies of the Civil War in Kentucky ever done.

7. John J. Pullen, Twentieth Maine: A Classic Story of Joshua Chamberlain and His Volunteer Regiment. Pullen’s classic study of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry is considered to be the prototype for the modern unit history. It, along with Alan Nolan’s excellent history of the Iron Brigade, set the standard for the rest of us to follow in documenting the history of famous units of the Civil War.

6. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom. Although it lacks in military detail, as one might expect of a one-volume narrative history of the Civil War, this book is by far the single best one-volume history of the military, political, and economics of the Civil War era yet published. It’s the book I always recommend to newbies.

5. John J. Hennessy, Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas. In my humble opinion, this is, hands-down, THE finest one-volume tactical Civil War campaign study ever written. Period.

4. Joseph L. Harsh, Taken at the Flood: Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862. If John Hennessy’s study of the Second Bull Run Campaign is the best tactical study of a campaign, then Joe Harsh’s Taken at the Flood is the finest overall campaign study ever published. This book, epic in scope, covers the entire 1862 Maryland Campaign and completely recast most of the prior art by determining Robert E. Lee’s strategy for the campaign and then analyzing its execution in light of that strategy. Deeply researched and magnificently written, this book deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of anyone claiming to have an interest in the Civil War.

3. Alan T. Nolan, Lee Considered: General Robert E. Lee and Civil War History. Revisionist in scope, and written as a lawyer’s brief, Nolan tackled the greatest icon of the Lost Cause and made him human. This book was critical to my own thinking on Lee and provided me with the role model for one of my own books. You may not agree with everything Nolan says, and some of it may anger you, but you will come away from this book having reconsidered your own positions on Robert E. Lee. At the end of the day, no historian can hope for more.

2. Edwin B. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command. Simply put, this book is the Bible for the student of the Gettysburg Campaign. Featuring excellent tactical detail as well as deep analysis, this book is mandatory reading for any student of the Gettysburg Campaign.

1. American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War. This is probably the only cross-over from Glenn’s list. He has it at no. 12. For me, it was my first Civil War book, and I still find myself drawn to Bruce Catton’s perfect prose, the coolest maps ever published in any Civil War book, and its gorgeous photography. My eleven-year-old nephew asked me for a Civil War book that would be appropriate for him last month, and this is the one that I chose for him. My first Civil War book is now his first Civil War book, and I know that neither Adam nor I are alone in making that particular claim. I checked this book out of the library literally dozens of times and no other Civil War book has influenced me more than this magnificent classic did. All else pales in comparison.

For what it’s worth, that’s my list. I’d like to invite you, my readers, to make up your own list and publish it here in the comments if you like. The rules are simple: keep it civil, use the same criteria that Glenn established, and have fun.

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I don’t know whether it should make me feel better that the State of Ohio is not the only state that has scrimped on funding its Sesquicentennial celebration. Indeed, it appears that most states are avoiding funding their sesquicentennial celebrations. The following appeared on MSNBC today:

States scrimping on Civil War anniversary
Efforts to commemorate the 150th anniversary of America’s bloodiest war will begin next year and run into 2015

By CHRIS CAROLA

updated 12/26/2010 2:18:27 PM ET

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York state contributed 448,000 troops and $150 million to the Union cause during the Civil War, not to mention untold tons of supplies, food, guns and munitions.

But with the 150th anniversary of the war’s start just months away, New York state government has so far failed to scrounge up a single Yankee dollar to commemorate a conflict it played such a major role in winning.

New York isn’t alone. Other states saddled with similar budget woes are unable or unwilling to set aside taxpayer funds for historic re-enactments and museum exhibits when public employees are being laid off and services slashed.

Even South Carolina, where the war’s first shots were fired upon Fort Sumter in April 1861, has declined to provide government funding for organizations planning events in the Palmetto State.

“State money right now is hard to find for anything,” said New York state historian Robert Weible. “That’s life. We’re all living with that.”

At least 21 states have formed commissions, committees or initiatives to commemorate the 150th anniversary of America’s bloodiest war, starting next year and running into 2015. Of those states, Virginia and Pennsylvania appear to be leading the way in efforts to plan, promote and stage Civil War commemorations.

“Most states have very little or limited funding,” said Cheryl Jackson, executive director of the Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission. “That’s not unique among the states, what you’re finding in New York.”

The Virginia organization has received an annual $2 million appropriation from the state since 2008, Jackson said. Three out of every five Civil War battles were fought in Virginia, home to the Confederate capital, Richmond, and some of the South’s greatest generals, including Robert E. Lee.

“Virginia bore its share of scars, many of which are still there, so it’s natural that the state take the lead,” said James I. “Bud” Robertson Jr., a Virginia Tech history professor and member of the state’s commission.

Pennsylvania has managed to collect nearly $5 million in government funding for its commemoration, including $800,000 in federal grants, according to Barbara Franco, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

The key, she said, was Pennsylvania’s decision to start its planning in 2007, just before the economy tanked and government coffers shriveled. Plus, Franco added, Pennsylvania didn’t wait for Congress to get around to creating a national Civil War commission, something lawmakers in Washington, D.C., so far have failed to do.

On the federal level, the National Parks Service is coordinating Civil War events planned through 2015 at more than 75 battlefields and historic sites, as well as at museums and other privately operated sites.

On the state level, various local and regional groups are being enlisted to muster resources for 150th anniversary events.

“Sometimes national commissions are helpful, sometimes they’re not helpful,” Franco said. “Perhaps this grassroots approach provides more opportunities to get down to the real issues that a national commission would never be able to do.”

New York so far doesn’t plan to create a Civil War commemoration commission. But Weible said talks already have begun between his office and local history-related entities to come up with ways to mark the war in the coming years.

“Our concern right now is trying to get everybody on the same page and cooperating with each other and talking to people they don’t normally talk to,” he said. “You don’t need money to make good things happen. It’s nice if you can get it. But we work with what we’ve got.”

What New York has to work with is a deep well of Civil War resources, even though no battles were fought on its soil.

New York communities large and small were touched in some way by the Civil War, and many still have the evidence to prove it, from old industrial sites that supplied Union troops to vast collections of artifacts held by state and local museums. Besides providing the most soldiers during the war, New York suffered the most casualties, with 46,000 killed. Monuments and memorials to their sacrifice can be found all across the state.

More than 200 New York infantry, cavalry and artillery units served in nearly every campaign of the war, from Gettysburg to Vicksburg, said Michael Aikey, director of the New York State Military Museum in Saratoga Springs, home to more than 850 Civil War battle flags, the largest collection in the nation.

Prominent figures from the era — including William Seward, Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Fredrick Douglass and Ulysses S. Grant — all lived in New York, and museums and historic sites in their names can be found upstate.

With such links to its Civil War history, New York is counting on local historians, re-enactment groups and the approximately 20 Civil War round tables across the state to help organize anniversary commemorations without any government funding.

“We must definitely commemorate what those soldiers did,” said Patrick Falci of Queens, past president of the Civil War Round Table of New York City. “Our job is to keep it going. What happened down there made us what we are today.”

Despite the lack of an official role by New York, Weible said he’s certain the state’s legacy in the War Between the States will be properly honored over the next five years.

“The bottom line is, we’ve got a great story,” he said. “Stay tuned. Things are happening. We’re going to make this work.”

Given Ohio’s terrible budgetary challenges, I really do understand the reasons why we can’t get any taxpayer funding for what we’re trying to do. We’re fortunate that our staffers have done a fabulous job of finding some grant money for us, so that we have some budget, and I am sure that the commissions from some of our sister states will do the same thing. Nevertheless, a great opportunity for the states to help to generate new interest in the Civil War on the occasion of its sesquicentennial. In spite of the lack of funding, I can only hope that we succeed in spurring some new interest in the war while also paying appropriate tribute to them men who gave the last full measure of their devotion for causes that they believed in.

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