General musings

Mark Grimsley posted the lyrics to “The Rising,” Bruce Springsteen’s brilliant tribute to the firefighters who died at the World Trade Center, on his blog today, with an image of a grieving firefighter sitting by the rubble of collapsed Twin Towers, being comforted by two angels. It was a simple but incredibly eloquent and moving way to remember those who gave their lives in the hope of that others might live. They don’t call New York’s firefighters “The Bravest” for no reason.

We should not–no, cannot–ever forget what happened on September 11, 2001. The world as we know it changed forever that day. And thousands of normal people who were just going about their daily routines lost their lives as a consequence.

I spent the night of September 10, 2001 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I spoke to the Rappahannock Valley Civil War Roundtable on the Battle of Tom’s Brook that evening. I’d been on the road for a few days–I’d spoken to a Roundtable in Pinehurst, NC, and then had a few days of battlefield stompling. I was scheduled to go home on the morning of 9/11.

My plan was to take I-95 to 395, go past the Pentagon, pick up the George Washington Parkway, cut the corner, take it to the Beltway, follow the Beltway to 270, take 270 to Frederick, and then pick up I-70 at Frederick. My house sits about a mile north of I-70 here in Columbus, so it’s pretty much a straight shot on 70. If all had gone according to the original schedule, I would have passed by the Pentagon at just about the precise moment that the American Airlines plane slammed into it.

However, at that time, I was in the process of finalizing my arrangements with the dean of American Military University, who asked me to stop by the office to meet me on the morning of 9/11. So, I drove up to Manassas from Fredericksburg to meet with the dean.

I called Susan on my cell as I was driving. The first plane crashed into the World Trade Center while we were talking, and we were still on the phone when the second one also hit. She was watching it all unfold on the Today show, and she described the events to me as they occurred. AMU’s offices are right next to the Prince George’s County airport, and by the time I got out of my meeting, the Pentagon had been hit and United 93 was down. When I walked out of the meeting, there were armed guards everywhere around the entrances to the airport, wearing camouflage fatigues and toting automatic weapons. It was a chilling sight, to say the least.

I quickly realized that my original route wouldn’t be a good possibility. I also heard that due to the crash of United 93, the Pennsylvania Turnpike was closed, and that was my normal route. I had to find a new route.

I decided that the best bet was to take I-66 to its terminus in Front Royal, pick up I-81, take it north to Hagerstown, and pick up I-70 there. I would take 70 to Hancock and then get I-68, which goes through the mountains of western Maryland and West Virginia. I-68 ends in Morgantown, WV, where I would pick up I-79, take it to Washington, PA, get I-70 there, and finally make my way home. And that’s what I did.

As I was driving west on I-66, I was in the left lane at one point. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a convoy of black Chevy Suburbans with red and blue lights coming up behind at a very high rate of speed, so I pulled over to let them go by. By then, they were already saying that Cheney had been taken to some undisclosed safe location, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether these vehicles had something to do with that (I subsequently learned where that “undisclosed location” is, and it’s not likely that they had anything to do with it). They whizzed by me like I was standing still.

I have to admit that I was glad that I took such a long and roundabout route to get home. I felt safer going through the West Virginia mountains, figuring that I would be safe out in the middle of nowhere. What was really strange was not seeing any aircraft in the sky. I was listening to NPR all day, so I knew as much as anyone did, but I hadn’t seen any of the horrifying but now familiar video. I also couldn’t reach Susan on the cell phone because the cellular telephone system was in bad shape from the combination of losing cells in New York and from its being horribly overloaded.

I finally crossed into Ohio about 5 PM. I stopped to use the bathroom at a rest stop, briefly asking the Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper how he was doing. When I came out, I looked up in the sky and saw a single large plane surrounded by multiple fighters and knew that it could only be Air Force One. Now, I am no fan of the current occupant of the White House–I think that he stole the 2000 election and took office without having being elected and my opinion of him has only gone down by leaps and bounds since then–but I have to admit that I was glad to see him that day. It gave me a small measure of comfort.

I finally got home about 7:00 that evening. It had been a long and brutal day, and I finally saw the horrific videos I’d heard about all day. I just wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.

Susan’s cousin was on the 22nd floor of the South Tower when it was hit. If she hadn’t been in a meeting there, she would have been dead, as her office was on the floor that was hit. Or there was my friend Mark’s sister, Jennifer. Jenn had just gotten off the train from New Jersey and was cutting across the plaza at the WTC to catch the subway, completely unaware of what had happened–she was underground when the plane hit–and was yanked out of the way by an alert policeman, or else Jenn would have been hit by the body of someone who jumped from one of the floors above the conflagration. To this day, nobody knows whether that nameless but nevertheless heroic policeman survived. My friend Jim Nolan–a lifelong New Yorker–saw the whole thing from his office window in mid-town Manhattan and then had to walk home to Queens. “Look what they’ve done to my city,” he thought.

Indeed. Look what they’ve done to our world. It will never be the same again. I will save my rant against the present administration for tomorrow before leaving the topic for good. Tonight, it’s not appropriate.

We can never forget the firefighters, the policemen, and the employees of the firms headquartered in the WTC. We can never forget the civilians and the soldiers and sailors of the Pentagon who gave their lives. We can never forget Kevin Levin’s cousin Alisha Levin, who died at the WTC. We can never forget the flight crews of the airliners that crashed, or the innocent passengers who filled those planes. We can never forget the heroic men and women of United 93 who saved the White House or the Capitol from a horrendous fate. And we can never forget the people who lost loved ones in these tragic events.

For a brief, shining moment, as we poured out our grief, we Americans permitted the better angels of our nature to shine through. Instead of partisan politics, for once, we united and came together. The generosity of people in this time of crisis was staggering (just as it was in the wake of Katrina). It’s really a tragedy that we need a disaster of nearly unprecedented scale to bring us together, but it seems to be the case.

We must never forget. For those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.

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Having grown up in the Philadelphia suburbs, I am a life-long, die-hard, long-suffering Philadelphia Eagles fan. The Eagles won their last NFL championship in 1960, about 90 days before I was born. They have not won one in my lifetime, although they have lost in the Super Bowl twice, 1981 and 2005.

I’m wearing my Donovan McNabb jersey as I write this. I’m always really excited at the beginning of the season, and I pay for the NFL Sunday ticket package on DirecTV so that I can watch every game. I spent the afternoon watching the Eagles beat the Houston Texans 24-10 today. McNabb is healthy again, and their new wideout, Donte Stallworth, made a large and immediate impact today.

Once again, I’m optimistic for the chances of my Eagles, although they will, undoubtedly, end up breaking my heart again, just as they do every year. For now, though, I’m going to enjoy it for as long as it lasts.

And let’s hope that Terrell Owens pulls his hamstring again, and that he misses most, if not all, of the season. I hate Dallas as much as I hate the New York Yankees, and now that Owens is there, it gives me all that much more reason to hate them intensely.

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A number of months ago, I told all of you that Susan and I had broken ground on a new house, at least in part because we have nowhere else to go with books in our present house. The new house is nearly finished, and should be finished within four weeks. They’re doing the trim work now.

Two major problems have arisen. First, Susan’s hours were cut in half for a number of months earlier this year, which made financing the new house an issue. Second is my new job. Had I stayed at the old firm, I would have had about a 20 mile drive to work each day, give or take. However, the new firm is a lot farther away. As it sits now, I have a 25 mile drive each way to get to work, which takes a good 45 minutes each way. If we were to move to new house, my drive would increase to 40-45 miles each way, which is just not acceptable. I am unwilling to spend more than two hours per day driving. So, we’ve decided to put the house up for sale as soon as we close on it. It’s 3100 square feet with two bonus rooms on three-quarters of an acre, so it should move quickly. We can’t start looking for something in earnest that’s closer to my office until this situation gets resolved.

That means that we’re stuck here for the time being. We’re still completely out of space for books, and the problem is, if anything, now worse than before. Books are piling up on the floor in my office because there simply is no more shelf space for them. I hate doing that, and it looks awful to see piles of books all over the floor. Our basement tends to have dampness issues, so it’s not an option. There simply is nowhere else to put any more bookcases here.

So, the primary problem remains. We will still have to move in order to accommodate our library. It just means that we will be moving in another direction. And, for the time being, my library will continue to overflow.

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One of my partners in the new law firm practices only in the realm of sports and entertainment law. In other words, he’s an agent. Most of his clients are NBA coaches, but he also works with some entertainers as well. He recently took on a new client, a female reporter at our local NBC affiliate.

Our law firm is brand new. It was only formed 90 days ago. The suburban community where we’re located has been trying to attract new business, so it wholeheartedly supported my partners when they decided to light there, offering goodies such as tax abatements and the like to sweeten the pot and make it worth their while to do so. The town fathers wanted to have a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate our launch, which was held on Thursday night. We decided to make it a small open house, and invited some clients and friends.

Since the reporter had been in the office earlier today meeting with my partner, he invited her and her husband to the open house. I’d met her briefly earlier in the day, but was in something of a hurry and couldn’t do much more than have a brief conversation on my way to a meeting on the other side of town. When she and her husband came to the open house, we got to talk quite a bit more. I asked where she’d gone to college, and when she told me Virginia Tech, I asked if she had ever taken a course with either Bud Robertson or Jack Davis. She then mentioned that her first job had been with a station in the Harrisonburg, and I mentioned how much I love the Shenandoah Valley. With that, she got a big smile on her face.

It turns out that she is a native of the Shenandoah Valley and grew up in a town that was destroyed during Sheridan’s burning of the Valley in October 1864. Her father is a reenactor, and she told me in an e-mail tonight how much she likes the Cedar Creek battlefield and Belle Grove Plantation. It truly is a small world. Who’d have thunk it?

Everywhere I go, I meet people with fascinating connections to the Civil War. I think that’s what I enjoy most about my travels in the Civil War community, and why I love talking to the people I meet along the way. It’s what makes what I do rewarding.

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Although I’ve devoted most of my life to the study of the Civil War and I have visited lots of battlefields, there are still plenty I have never seen but definitely want to visit. That list includes, in no particular order:

1. Stones River
2. Pea Ridge
3. Champion Hill
4. Most of the battlefields around Atlanta (or what’s left of them, anyway)
5. Nashville (or what little bit is left of it)
6. Franklin
7. Brice’s Crossroads
8. Aiken, SC (site of another instance where Judson Kilpatrick was badly surprised and barely got out with his command intact)
9. Sailor’s Creek

And there’s one place that I’ve only visited once for a total of five hours–nothing remotely close to enough time to do it justice: Vicksburg.

There are other battlefields I’ve only visited once, but would like to see again in greater detail. They include, in no particular order:

1. Shiloh
2. Chickamauga
3. Most of the Seven Days
4. Perryville

These two lists pretty much reflect my eastern theater bias, don’t they?

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The Dahlgren bio is the first full-length biography that I’ve written solely on my own. That he died in combat at 21 years, 11 months made it relatively easy from the perspective of there being a very finite period of time to cover. The fact that I managed to get 100,000 words out of it should tell just how jam-packed this young man’s life actually was, and how much he accomplished in terms of military deeds in less than two years in the army.

So, the bigger question–as yet unanswered–is how much of a challenge it is going to be to tackle the life of someone who lived a long full life and accomplished many things in the years after the Civil War. Frankly, that’s something that I have never yet attempted.

I’ve previously mentioned my very long term interest in General David M. Gregg, who settled in my home town of Reading, Pennsylvania after the end of the Civil War. Gregg resigned his commission under some very uncertain circumstances in February 1865, just before the end of the war, and then settled in Reading. He lived until 1916, and reached the ripe old age of 83, and had a long and successful career after the war that included diplomatic service. There are two large collections of his papers–one at the Library of Congress and the other at the Berks County Historical Society in Reading, PA–and an unpublished memoir of the General’s pre-war service in the west written by his son. A biography of David Gregg presents a very different challenge than writing a biography of a young man who died in battle before his 22nd birthday, the primary difference being that Gregg’s life was not ensnarled in controversy like Dahlgren’s was.

Gregg has long needed a good full-length biography. There has only ever been one published, and it’s 22 years old, only 136 pages long, and self-published. I own a copy. It’s not a good book. Gregg deserves much better.

Some time ago, I decided to tackle a full-length biography of Gregg, and I’ve started the process of gathering material. It’s going to be a number of years before I’m ready to put pen to paper, but I’m looking forward to the challenge of trying to tackle his life.

The same thing holds true for Theodore J. Wint, except for one thing. Although Wint served in the Army for 43 years, there are no known collections of his papers to be found anywhere, whereas Gregg left a large legacy of writings in his own words. Trying to cobble together a full-length biography of Wint poses different challenges. Most of his career was spent fighting Indians under Ranald MacKenzie–something I know little about and will have to educate myself about–and then fought in Cuba, the Philippines, and in China during the Boxer Rebellion. In order to cover his life in detail, I’m going to have learn a great deal about a lot of things that I presently know next to nothing about.

So, it’s going to be a real challenge. But it’s one I welcome.

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When I choose the topics for my books, I do so understanding that they will often have limited commercial appeal. Let’s face it–a book about a cavalry battle that took place on the grounds of Fort Bragg in the closing days of the war will have a far more limited commercial appeal than, say, the 147th book devoted to Pickett’s Charge. I get that. It makes a certain amount of sense to me.

At the same time, I don’t do this to lose money, either. In a perfect world, I would actually make some decent money from one of these projects. The book on Stuart’s Ride seems to offer the best hope of really selling a lot of books and making some money of any project I have yet published.

I’ve already mentioned here that J. D. and I had put together a web site for the promotion and sale of the Stuart’s Ride book. However, Ted Savas, our publisher, pointed out to us that we’re not professional web designers and that neither of us really have the knowledge or tools to really create a slick, professional web site to sell our book. We’ve decided to spend some money and engage the services of a pro to develop the site for us, and he’s getting started this week. The book is supposed to ship from the printer next Tuesday, so there’s not a lot of time.

Ted put us in touch with Val Leolagi of Digital Architects, who has done some fine work for several of Ted’s authors. We’ve retained Val to do our site for us, and, once it’s done, I’m planning on hiring him to do an overhaul of my Rush’s Lancers website to not only continue to include the great content that’s there now, but also to majorly jazz it up as a means of promoting and selling my new regimental history of the Lancers. The web site has not had any sort of an update of any substance since Susan designed it in 1999. It would be really nice to make back some of the very large investment I’ve made into documenting the history of this regiment for the past twelve years, and I need every edge I can find to sell more copies of the book.

Stay tuned.

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Tonight was the regularly scheduled meeting of the Central Ohio Civil War Roundtable. I had intended to go to the meeting tonight, as fellow blogger Mark Grimsley was the speaker tonight, and I had really wanted to hear Mark’s talk.

Instead, I got bogged down in a project at work, lost track of time, and completely forgot about the Roundtable meeting. Consequently, I missed Mark’s talk.

Mark, if you see this, I am very, very sorry that I missed your talk. I had every intention of making it, and then was stupid and flat out forgot what day of the week it was. My apologies.

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Well, it happened again last night. Another previously unknown large set of letters by a trooper of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry came to my attention last night. More about that shortly.

The lunch speaker at the conference today was Tom Carhart. He apparently reads this blog, as he was aware that I have described his book as a festering pile of garbage. He actually got in my face about it after his talk. I challenged his nonsensical theory with two very pointed questions, and he obviously figured out who I was, and came up to me. When I introduced myself, he actually got in my face. He made a big deal of telling me that since he has a big New York publisher behind him, he must be doing something right. Good for him.

I stand by my assessment of his work. After hearing his talk today–filled with errors, by the way–he actually claimed that one of Custer’s regiments was armed with Henry rifles–I’m even more convinced than ever that his book is intellectually dishonest and that it intentionally seeks to deceive the public. Another flagrantly false thing he claimed is that Kilpatrick went to Hunterstown to lay a trap for the Confederate cavalry. Never mind that it was a classic example of a meeting engagement. Because of his twisting of facts to suit his endst, I simply have absolutely no respect for his book or for him.

Don’t get me wrong–I support all authors, so long as they are intellectually honest and don’t distort and/or twist the facts. His theory does just that. Consequently, I have not been shy about stating my opinion, and I won’t stop now just because he doesn’t like it.

Anyway, back to the Lancers….

One of the other attendees of the LBHA conference is a lawyer from Dayton that I know named Rick Carlile. Rick represents Morningside, which is how I know him. Anyway, Rick and I were chatting last night, and he made the comment that he wished I would do another book on the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, because he had purchased a set of 106 letters by a trooper of the Lancers from a family member that he would love to see get used. He mentioned that other than a few people, nobody’s ever seen them, and that they are really excellent letters.

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

I sent my publisher an e-mail last night with the subject line “You’re going to kill me…..” and told him what I’ve just told you. So, I’ve got time–the end of August–to incorporate the good material from these letters into my manuscript. It’s obviously going to be a big job, but from what Rick tells me, it will be worth it. Or so I hope. I will keep everyone posted.

I’m in Chambersburg as I write this. I visited another Dahlgren spot on the way out of Richmond today and then drove up here. I have my second panel discussion of the day at 10, and a talk tomorrow morning, and then I finally get to go home. I have to admit that I’m really looking forward to getting home.

There are big changes afoot in my life next week, and I’d like to get a decent night’s rest before tackling them.

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Sorry I’ve been quiet. We went to Pittsburgh this weekend to visit Susan’s sister. My nieces have been bugging us to come visit, so we pulled the trigger this weekend and went.

On Saturday, we went to the Wings Over Pittsburgh air show, held on the grounds of the Air National Guard base that’s adjacent to Pittsburgh International Airport. It was a very impressive show. It’s too bad that my nieces, who are 11 1/2 (they’re identical twins) couldn’t possibly have been less interested, because there was some incredibly cool stuff there. My nephew, who’s six, was big into it, and he had a ball.

We had lunch when we first got there. We ended up sitting on the ground under the right engine of an A-10 Warthog. There’s something very surrealistic about that. The kids, of course, were completely oblivious to what those aircraft do and what they were designed for, which made it all the more surrealistic. Susan’s sister had oil from the engine drip on her, so the memory of that was the dripping oil and not the aircraft itself.

There was a very impressive demonstration by the Blue Angels, as well as a bunch of other interesting aerobatics. When I was a child, there was a world-class air show in my hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania. They would alternate years–one year would be the Blue Angels, and the next year would be the Air Force Thunderbirds. Then, when I was in high school, they went to an every-other-year format, and I haven’t been there in years. However, I saw the Blue Angels regularly. Too bad it’s been years since the last time.

Now, they fly F-18 Hornets, and they put those planes through their paces. The precision is genuinely remarkable; some of the maneuvers of the four-plane diamond were less then two feet apart in places. It was damned impressive. They went supersonic a couple of times, meaning that some very memorable sonic booms left a lot of people covering their ears. Even the flight crews of the other aircraft were watching the maneuvers of the Blue Angels raptly and intently. I spotted the crew of one of the cargo planes watching from on top of their plane, which was a neat thing to see.

A C-5 Galaxy also performed some maneuvers. If you’ve never seen one of those flying giants in the air, it’s remarkably nimble given its incredible size and bulk.

Among the other aircraft on display:

A-10 (I just love the Warthog–they’ve got a face only a mother can love, but what an amazing aircraft)

F-14 (there’s only one squadron of them left on active duty, and that will be retired in September)
F-15
F-16

B-52 (the BUFF is still a remarkable aircraft; it’s hard to believe that they’re 50+ years old and still a workhorse)
KC-135
C-17 (I’d never seen one up close previously)
C-141
CE-130
B-24
B-25

All things considered, it was really a remarkable visit, and one I’m very happy we made. Sadly, my nieces got all crabby and very unpleasant and pretty much insisted that we leave early, so I missed part of the Blue Angels’ show, which was disappointing indeed.

I know that this has nothing to do with the Civil War, but I’ve always believed that today’s version of the horse cavalryman is either the tanker or the fighter pilot, or, perhaps, both.

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