General News

I think that I have mentioned here that J. D. and I did an article on Corbit’s Charge at Westminster on June 29, 1863 for Gettysburg Magazine. The article is based on the chapter on Westminster from Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg, but is actually quite different from the chapter in the book.

The chapter in the book was definitely written from Stuart’s perspective. Consequently, the focus is really on Stuart’s men and on how this episode impacted Stuart’s advance into Pennsylvania. The article, by contrast, really is a true tactical battle narrative. It focuses equally on both sides, and includes several sources that were not included in the book chapter. Thus, although they’re quite similar, they’re also very different. I think that the article nicely compliments the book chapter.

In any event, the article is in the new issue of Gettysburg Magazine, which is the newly-released issue 36. We’re the lead-off article for the issue, so we kind of got top billing, which is pretty exciting. I was also very pleased to see that Ed Bearss had a lot of nice things to say about it in his traditional introductory piece that is lead-in for every issue of the magazine.

For those interested in the drama of Corbit’s Charge, or in Stuart’s advance into Pennsylvania, then you might want to get a look at this article. J. D. and I are both quite pleased with it.

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As critical as I have been of Google’s scheme to disregard the copyright rights of authors, I have a very difficult time finding any fault at all with this extremely useful web site. The link is to Microsoft’s Books Live site. Bear in mind that the depth of how much I despise Microsoft–also known as the Evil Empire–and that saying anything at nice about Microsoft is extremely difficult indeed for me. Hat tip to Teej Smith and J. D. Petruzzi for bringing this site to my attention.

However, the Evil Empire’s Books Live project has digitized thousands of PUBLIC DOMAIN works in order to make them available to the consuming public. These works are no longer eligible for copyright protection, so there are no royalties and may be used by anyone for any reason. I did a search for Ulric Dahlgren earlier this evening, and found a number of really useful items there that I had either never heard of, or had overlooked in the course of doing my research. The site is free, and it’s free to use the materials found there.

The only down side is that the images are digital scans, so you can’t do a copy/paste. You either have to print out the pages you want, or you have to sit and transcribe them. However, that’s a small price to pay for the benefits received. As hard as it is for me to endorse anything even remotely related to Microsoft, this site gets an enthusiastic two thumbs up from me.

Penn State University has another very useful project. It’s been digitizing Civil War newspapers from a number of large and small towns around the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The site can be found here. There are a number of good newspaper sources there, such as the Philadelphia Post and the Chambersburg Repository. There are also articles from a newspaper I had never before heard of, but which may well have my favorite newspaper name of all time, the Wellsboro Agitator.

These two digital history projects are enormously useful, and I commend them to you.

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Well, the knee is blown no more. Susan had her reconstructive knee surgery today.

The doctor fully expected to have to remove the hardware from her first ACL reconstruction on that knee in 1989. Having to do so would be more work and would have caused more pain. Fortunately, he didn’t have to remove either of the old screws from her knee and was able to work around them. The transplant was completed successfully, and he repaired the damage to her meniscus. Everything was done arthroscopically and she is already able to put weight on the leg if she’s in her immobilizer.

Everything went fine. She’s upstairs asleep in percocet land at the moment, and will hoppefully be on the road to recovery tomorrow.

Rehab–the really sucky part–will begin in about two weeks.

For everyone who has asked or sent their best wishes, we really appreciate it.

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Having grown up in the Philadelphia area, I have long maintained an interest in the American Revolution. Over the course of the past several years, I have stepped up my reading on the Revolutionary War, and have tried to round out my knowledge base.

Due the success of the CWDG forum boards, I decided to start a second set of forum boards, this time, dedicated to the Revolutionary War. Please check them out. They can be found here. I hope some of my regular readers will find the Revolutionary War as interesting as I do, and that some of you will register and post there.

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Susan was supposed to have her ACL reconstruction surgery today. If all had gone according to plan, I would be reporting on the surgery right now.

Unfortunately, the surgery got bumped for a week. Our orthopedist was on call this past weekend, and had a very difficult weekend. He had something like 17 serious fractures to deal with, a number of which required nearly immediate surgery in order to allow the patients to begin the healing process. Consequently, all of his non-essential surgeries for today–including Susan–had to be postponed.

Needless to say, this was NOT happy news. We both wanted to get it over with, so that Susan could be on the road back to having a normal and healthy knee. Sadly, we now have another week of the immobilizer, the crutches, a weak, wobbly knee, and general unhappiness.

Stay tuned. Sadly, there’s another chapter to this saga. 🙁

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After a Thanksgiving trip to visit my parents in Reading, PA, Susan and I returned home this afternoon. We were supposed to be gone until tomorrow, but decided that a day to relax prior to her surgery was important, so we left a day early.

I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving Day and that all overdosed on tryptophan.

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Just a quick post to wish one and all a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

And be careful not to overdose on tryptophan….  :-) 

 

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We saw the orthopedic surgeon this afternoon. Just like the last visit, there was good news, bad news, and unwelcome news.

The good news: the swelling has gone down, and he wants Susan to start to exercise the leg some in order to make sure that she maintains some muscle tone in the leg. He wants her to be out of the immobilizer as much as she feels comfortable doing.

The bad news: there’s no doubt at all about the need for surgery. She will definitely have to have it repaired surgically. The problem is that it’s a re-do of ACL reconstruction on that knee, so the success rate is less than for a first time.

The unwelcome news: It’s going to be a couple of weeks before there will be room for her in the surgical schedule. We won’t know for sure until tomorrow, but it doesn’t look like he will be able to work her into the surgical schedule until the week after Thanksgiving, which means that she’s going to have to suffer with more discomfort, the immobilizer, and the crutches for a couple of weeks longer than either of us would like. If it was up to us, they’d do the surgery tomorrow and get it over with.

So, that’s the update. Not much has changed. We remain trapped in blown knee limbo.

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The big broom came out last night.  My own opinion is that after six years of having absolutely no checks and balances that led to Skippy Bush getting a blank check, the American electorate decided that it was time to restore checks and balances. I can’t see how that’s a bad thing.

I find it interesting that my law school classmate Missy Hart, who had a Pennsylvania congressional district gerrymandered just for her, got broomed by 10,000 votes last night after a couple of terms rubber-stamping Skippy. I think that says a lot.

Here in Ohio, after sixteen years of incredibly corrupt one-party rule, the voters spoke. All statewide offices were decided yesterday: governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, and attorney general. The gubernatorial race was called within five minutes of the polls closing, and the Republican had conceded by 8:30. Only the Republican nominee for auditor won–she’s the first ever CPA to run for and hold the office, so I can see that one. Bob Ney’s protege–who defaulted on a $750,000 SBA loan last year, by the way–got less than 40% of the vote. Deb Pryce, the number four Republican in the house, barely squeaked by after a brutal and very ugly campaign.

We now have a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature. The system works–there will be checks and balances again. That can only be a good thing.

Best of all: Big Tobacco sank $5 million into a campaign to try to amend the state constitution to overrule home rule by making 21 local ordinances to ban smoking in bars, restaurants, and bowling alleys unconstitutional. It lost huge–it only got about 35% of the vote. A statewide smoking ban in public places got 58% of the vote and passed big.

Now that the system of checks and balances has been restored, I can only hope that some of the flagrantly illegal actions of the Bush administration–covered up neatly by the Republican Congress–will come to light. 

And the very best part of it is that the attack ads have, at last, stopped.  What a delight to be able to watch TV and not have to hit the mute button every time a commercial comes on…..

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Old friend Harry Smeltzer, who dipped his toe into the blogging pool earlier this year when he filled in while Dimitri Rotov took a vacation, has taken the plunge. Harry has a brand-new blog called Bull Runnings, which is an adjunct to his digital history project on the First Battle of Bull Run. I’ve added a link to Harry’s blog.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Harry. Have fun.

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