General musings

Time for a good rant. I haven’t had one for a while. Warning to those of you who are only interested in the Civil War–you’re going to hate this post. It’s a rant about something else that’s always been important in my life–music–and has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Civil War. So, proceed at your own peril.

I was born in the spring of 1961, meaning that I am 45 years old, although there was a time not that long ago (or so it seems) when the thought of being 45 was akin to being old as the hills. For the most part, I try not to act my age; I try to live my life by the title of one of my favorite Jimmy Buffett songs, “Growing Older But Not Up.”

One place where I am, apparently, an old fuddy-duddy is with music. Simply stated, I think that the vast majority of the new music being made today is beneath contempt. Calling most of this stuff garbage is an insult to rubbish (am I the only one who doesn’t get Green Day at all?). While there are notable exceptions (new Scottish singer K. T. Tunstall being one very notable exception), most of what’s out these days is trash. I had a discussion with a friend not long ago wherein we lamented the fact that it’s apparently not difficult to make it in the music biz today even if you don’t have a lot of musical talent. Britney Spears, for one, comes to mind when I say that.

I am a product of the 1970’s (I graduated from high school in 1979). Most of my favorite bands have been around since then. Many of my favorite bands fall within the category of progressive rock. Prog rock bands had genuine talent as musicians, and many of them were classically trained. See Kansas, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, Traffic, and the other great prog bands if you need a few examples of what I mean here. My wife’s office assistant, who is all of 19, has never even heard of most of these bands.

Today was one of those rarest of days here in Central Ohio: a summer day with not a cloud in the sky, not too hot, and no humidity to speak of. So, on the spur of the moment and just for the hell of it, I decided to check and see whether I could tickets to a double bill concert here tonight: Huey Lewis and the News and Chicago. To my great surprise, I was able to get two tickets at face value in the 18th row center. Off we went to the show.

I guess I must be showing my age. I can only think of one other instance where I saw more gray hair and more receding hairlines at a concert than tonight, and that’s when we went to see Simon & Garfunkel on their reunion tour a couple of years ago. Fortunately, I still have nearly all of my hair (although it has receded a bit), but I do have PLENTY of gray. So much so, in fact, that it shocks me every time I get my hair cut and I see the volume of it.

I always really liked Huey when he was at the height of his fame in the 1980’s. I saw him live twice in 1982 and 1983, and always thought he put on a great show. He didn’t disappoint tonight. Although the band behind him has changed, they still sound great, and the crowd was really into it. He may be in his mid-50’s now, but he can still rock, and still play a mean blues harmonica. Huey had quite a run of hits in the ’80’s, and they still sound good. They did all but three of his really big hits: “Hip to be Square” (the biggest of all), “Jacob’s Ladder” (actually written by Huey’s friend Bruce Hornsby), and “Walking on a Thin Line”.

Chicago was fabulous. They’ve always been a favorite of mine. This is their 39th year as a band, and there are still five original members. They recently released Chicago XXX. Ponder that for a moment….

Each one of them is a consummate professional and a virtuoso musician. The three horn players are all remarkable musicians. They opened the show by playing the entire “Ballet for a Girl From Buchanan”, which made up an entire side of Chicago II. Everyone of my generation knows “Colour My World,” which was guitarist Terry Kath’s signature song. Kath shot himself in 1977, and it nearly killed off the band. When they did it tonight, it had Huey Lewis on lead vocal, and he nailed it. It was pretty remarkable. When they did “I’m a Man,” both bands performed it together–both Huey and the News and Chicago.

Chicago did all of their hits, all of them comfortable and familiar. Their second album, Chicago II, which came out in 1969 and was a double album, is generally considered to be one of the top twenty rock albums, and certainly one of the most influential. Songs from it include: “Make Me Smile”, “Colour My World”, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”, and, of course, Chicago’s signature song, “Twenty-Five or Six to Four.” They did all of these tonight, closing out with “Twenty-Five or Six to Four” as the final encore. They only did one of those sappy songs that sold so many records in the 1980’s, instead focusing on the first five albums and also on their newest record.

The five remaining original members are all in their sixties now, and these old boys can still play and they can still rock. Although the current bass player doesn’t quite have the magnificent soaring voice of Peter Cetera, he’s a tremendous musician and is able to sing Cetera’s songs quite competently indeed.

On one hand, I felt quite old tonight, although there were certainly plenty of folks in attendance tonight much older than me. On the other hand, I was completely in my element, singing along (quite badly, I might add) and knowing all the words to almost every song by heart. Most of all, I was totally digging the idea that I was getting to hear great music played live by consummate musicians. Huey Lewis put it quite well at one point tonight when he said “In an America that seems to enjoy watching amateurs ice skate, try competitive sports, and most of all sing, these guys [Chicago] are real pros.” He was, of course, right on the money. The great tragedy is that the current generation has never really experienced that. They’re content with mediocrity. We never were.

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Saturday is the 143rd anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. I don’t mean to downplay the anniversary of the battle. It’s obviously a landmark event that’s more than worthy of commemoration. That much is beyond dispute.

The anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg has pretty much taken on a life of its own over the years. They started holding an annual reenactment event near the battlefield each year, and that’s what really triggered the insanity. Now, mind you, Gettysburg is a small town, perhaps 7500 permanent residents. It has an uncommon number of restaurants and hotels due to the tourist trade, but each year, tens of thousands of people descent on this little town for the anniversary and for the reenactment.

When that happens, there are no parking spaces. There are no hopes of getting a table at a restaurant. There are long–ridiculously long–lines most places. The battlefield itself is jam-packed with people. Trying to park at a popular spot like the top of Little Round Top–forget it. Not a chance.

I’ve been there on the anniversary twice, both times for booksigning events. The first time, we were fortunate enough to stay in a private residence that is on the South Cavalry Field, and which played a role in the battle. It is about four miles from the center of town, and on the morning of July 4, which was a Sunday that year (1998), the traffic was backed up for more than four miles. It was ridiculous. We went south to go north in order to get away from the traffic.

After the second time, I swore that I would never go there for the anniversary event again, and I meant it. I have absolutely no interest in being there at that time. I can’t deal with the crowds or the heat, and I want to be able to get a table at a restaurant with less than a three hour wait. I couldn’t possibly care less about the reenactment, so I have no desire to be there to see that.

I can certainly appreciate the fact that folks feel strongly enough about going and being there for the anniversary events, but no thanks. I will sit this one out. Enjoy the crowds, the heat, and the lines.

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The most recent issue of Blue & Gray magazine featured a re-interpretation of Brig. Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth’s charge and death on July 3, 1863 after the repulse of Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. The author, a licensed battlefield guide, has been working on this theory for years, and I’ve been waiting to see and read an elaboration of it for a long time. So, so far as that goes, I was very pleased to finally see the theory spelled out in black and white.

Now, this is a topic that I know a little bit about. Although it’s been nearly ten years since I’ve worked on it in any detail, my first book dealt with Farnsworth’s Charge and death in some depth. I had to familiarize myself with the sources, and I’ve retained an interest in the topic over the years. Also, once my book was published, some new/additional sources have surfaced, such as the only known account of the charge by William Wells of the 1st Vermont, who was later awarded a Medal of Honor for his role in the charge. A few months ago, I purchased a previously unknown letter about Farnsworth’s Charge by Capt. William Graham, the maternal nephew of Maj. Gen. George G. Meade that provides important details that nobody had ever seen or used in any other account of the charge. I intend to make use of it in a new project that J. D. Petruzzi and I are working on, and which I will elaborate upon here soon. It will be the first time that this letter has ever been used.

I wish I could count the number of times that I’ve been asked about this theory and about the merits of it. I’ve tried hard to stay out of the fray, in part because I’ve had some personal issues with the proponent of the theory over the years. I would often say, when asked, “my mother taught me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all, and my silence should tell you everything that you need to know.”

Having finally seen the actual theory and read it in detail, J. D. and I came to the conclusion that we could no longer remain silent about it. We feel that the public is being misled, and we cannot permit that to happen. Consequently, we have spent most of the last week composing a refutation of the theory–the proponent of the theory seeks to move these events nearly a half mile from where they actually occurred, and also hopes to re-interpret the idea of who actually killed Farnsworth and when during the charge he fell. We’ve pretty much finished it, and the folks we’ve asked to read it have told us that the evidence that we have adduced–not the least of which is a newly-discovered 1890 map prepared by the War Department–completely refutes the theory.

We will be submitting it to Blue & Gray this upcoming week. We hope that the whole thing will be published, but it’s nearly 5,000 words in length, and neither of us would be surprised if it’s edited substantially. If it is, we will find an appropriate forum for it, even if it means publishing it on this website in its full text.

I really wish I could understand the reasons why people feel that they need to concoct new intrepretations of events the way this particular person has done. If there were room for doubt, I could, perhaps understand. However, the evidence in this particular instance is nearly overwhelming, and I can’t help but wonder what the motivations are for the proponent under such circumstances. This theory’s been kicking around for a number of years, and most of the knowledgeable licensed battlefield guides reject it for the reasons I’ve stated here. So, too, do most of the National Park Service historians.

We will keep everyone posted.

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I’ve been involved in on-line discussion groups about the Civil War since 1996. We got our first Internet access that year, and Susan discovered the Gettysburg Discussion Group for me. The GDG is the oldest, and probably largest, of the on-line discussion groups. It’s the granddaddy of them all. I signed up, and have been a member for most of the intervening decade. As the years passed, I started my own group along with old friend Teej Smith.

We started as an e-mail discussion group. I am the co-moderator of that group, although I tend to leave much of the day-to-day moderation to Teej. The e-mail group is very small, by our choice. It has only about 100 members, of whom probably 30 are active participants. We’ve kept it mostly to those whom we want to be involved, and nobody can join without my approval. It’s still an active, ongoing group.

The e-mail group eventually morphed into a second discussion site. In 2004, we launched forum boards also. I pretty much run the forum boards myself, although Susan is a huge help to me. The forum boards have well over 300 members, and there’s actually not much overlap in the memberships of the e-mail group and the forum boards. That means that we rarely have repeated discussions, which is great.

I’ve also participated in another couple of similar forums over the years. I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. I’ve also seen a lot of tendencies.

Every group seems to have a real “know-it-all”. One group has the worst offender of all. To protect the guilty, I will call him Fred for these purposes. Now, I know Fred personally. One-on-one, or in very small groups, he’s actually a good guy. He’s a great guy to sit down with and have a meal, quite charming and a good conversationalist. However, Fred’s got a real problem. He has a REAL need to be the center of attention. He combines that with an enthusiastic embrace of every new off-the-wall theory to come down the pike. If it’s a new theory, it must be right.

That’s in part because Fred feels the need to develop new theories of his own in order to remain in the limelight. So, he spouts off with these bizarre and unsupportable theories that real experts laugh at because they’re so off the wall. And when someone has the temerity to challenge him–to call him on his BS, in other words–he responds one of two ways. He will either deliver a sermon about his decades-long journey of self-discovery of the truth of what happened, and will then congratulate himself on how great his scholarship is and point out that everyone else is obviously on a lower plane since they can’t see the Truth.

His other standard response is to adopt an extremely insulting and condescending tone that stops just short of being a flagrant personal attack, dress it up in a veil of trumped-up courtesy, and then wait for the recipient to be offended. It’s obviously a calculated thing, because it happens all the time. Then, when the poor unenlightened fool responds angrily, he takes on the role of the martyr with a hurt tone. To make things worse, Fred’s got a group of sycofants who will defend him, even if he is being rude and insulting. Why? Because the angry recipient of one of Fred’s broadsides had the gall to respond in a less then courteous fashion.

It’s pretty much akin to the kid who starts a fight on the playground and then steps back to watch the chaos that he or she has created without so much as throwing a punch himself or herself. It must be terribly rewarding to know that you’ve created such chaos, and then to step back and enjoy it. Fred’s a master of it, and it simply evades my understanding why (a) people tolerate him and his tactics and (b) they rush to defend and believe his nonsense when it’s just that: nonsense. I don’t get it.

I’ve always tried to remain as hands-off as possible while moderating. I typically won’t interject myself unless I absolutely have to, and then it’s with great reluctance. I’m very fortunate to have a group that knows the rules, and generally keeps to them. I’ve only ever had to excommunicate a couple of people in all the years I’ve done this, and I’m quite proud of that. Being a moderator is one of the most thankless jobs I can think of, so I’m especially proud of the communities that we have forged. For the most part, we all like each other, and there are almost never problems like the ones created by Fred.

On-line discussion groups can be a great place to share information and ideas if the rules are followed and if you’re fortunate enough not to have a Fred to foist his nonsense on everyone and then insult everyone who doesn’t buy into it. Then, it can be a thoroughly unpleasant thing indeed.

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143 years ago today, an epic passage of arms occurred on the hills and fields surrounding an obscure stop on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad called Brandy Station, located a few miles from Culpeper Court House. 21,000 Union and Confederate cavalrymen and 3,000 Union infantrymen spent fourteen hours locked in mortal combat that day.

The Union commander, Brig. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, the temporary commander of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps, was given a simple task: fall upon, destroy, or disperse the huge concentration of Confederate cavalry in Culpeper County. Pleasonton designed a brilliant plan. He divided his force into two wings. The right wing, consisting of the First Cavalry Division and a brigade of 1,500 selected infantry, would cross the Rappahannock River at Beverly’s Ford, and the Second and Third Divisions, along with another infantry brigade, would cross six miles further south at Kelly’s Ford. With the Second Division protecting the southern flank, the First and Third Divisions would converge on Culpeper. The infantry would hold the fords.

The plan was brilliant, but for one major problem. It was based on a faulty premise; it assumed that the enemy would be in and around Culpeper, and not just across the Rappahannock River. When John Buford’s First Division crossed the river, it immediately encountered Confederate cavalry, and a great battle commenced. Buford’s command lost a brigade commander, Col. Benjamin F. “Grimes” Davis, in the opening moments of the battle. Elements of Buford’s command, including five companies of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, made a determined attempt to capture a battaltion of Confederate horse artillery at St. James Church. Buford’s fight then bogged down into a desperate slugging match.

David Gregg’s Third Division crossed at Kelly’s Ford, and Gregg’s advance reached Fleetwood Hill about 11:00 that morning. There occurred a scene its participants remembered for the rest of their lives: brigade-sized mounted charged and countercharges, featuring sabers glinting in the bright spring sunshine. It was all of the romance typically associated with mounted melees, only a scale almost beyond imagination.

During the climax of the fight, Capt. Wesley Merritt, the commander of the 2nd U. S. Cavalry, engaged in a personal saber duel with Brig. Gen. William H. F. “Rooney” Lee, General Robert E. Lee’s second son. Rooney Lee was wounded in the engagement and was later captured as a result. Buford’s men briefly carried the crest of Yew Ridge, the northern extension of Fleetwood Hill, before being driven back. Col. Alfred N. Duffie’s Second Division, which was held up at Kelly’s Ford for nearly the entire day by two regiments of Confederate cavalry, played no role in the main battle, and only arrived at Fleetwood Hill in time to cover Gregg’s withdrawal.

Jeb Stuart and his Confederate cavalry had been caught by surprise, but they had fought a magnificent fight. The brigade of Brig. Gen. William E. “Grumble” Jones, in particular, carried the bulk of the day’s fighting, and these men performed superbly.

Finally, at the end of the day, Pleasonton broke off and withdrew, his troopers withdrawing at their own leisurely rate. Stuart was perfectly happy to let them go. By all measures, Brandy Staiton is a Confederate victory: Stuart held the battlefield at the end of the day, and Pleasonton utterly failed to accomplish his objectives. Although Pleasonton later lied and claimed that he had captured Stuart’s field desk and its contents, thereby alerting the Union high command to the Confederate plan to invade the north, nothing of the sort happened. Pleaosnton was a notorious liar, and this was one of his very worst. In short, the raid accomplished none of its objectives, but it was a magnificent effort on the part of both sides.

Stuart came under harsh criticism for being caught by surprise, but he handled his troops superbly. Ultimately, he won the battle, but he caught hell for it. Brandy Station delayed the beginning of the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania by a single day, so it had very little in the way of strategic significance to the ultimate outcome of the campaign. However, many people, including Stuart’s engineer officer. W. W. Blackford, have claimed that the Brandy Station fight made the Union cavalry, and that from that day forward the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps was fully the equal of Stuart’s vaunted horsemen.

Thus, Brandy Station marks a red-letter day in the development of the Federal cavalry, and it also marks the largest cavalry battle ever fought on the North American continent. As such, it is worthy of being remembered, and I pay tribute to the men who fought and died there that day, whether they wore blue or gray.

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My recent visit to Gettysburg reminded me of a phenomenon that never ceases to amaze me. As I drove through the Little Round Top area, and specifically, by the spur where the 20th Maine fought, I was again astonished by the number of people packed into that small area. Many of them are, of course, there because of either The Killer Angels or Ted Turner’s movie adaptation of it.

The star of both book and movie is Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the commander of the 20th Maine Infantry. To be sure, Jeff Daniels gave a terrific performance as Chamberlain, and he deserves the accolades that he received for that performance (too bad the follow up in Gods and Generals wasn’t half as good). He really captured–and even looked a great deal like–the essence of the fighting professor.

It bears noting that I am a great admirer of Chamberlain’s, and also a fan. The very first article on the Civil War that I ever wrote–awful as it was–was a biographical sketch of Chamberlain’s life entitled “The Fighting Professor”. I have a real war-time autograph of Chamberlain’s hanging on the wall of my office (from February 1863, signed with the rank of lieutenant colonel), framed with the Dale Gallon print Hold at All Costs, a depiction of Chamberlain’s defense of Little Round Top. I also own Don Troiani’s Bayonet, a depiction of the charge of the 20th Maine at the climax of the fighting for Little Round Top.

Having said all of that, it never ceases to amaze me as to the completely disproportionate amount of attention that Chamberlain receives vis-a-vis others who also made equally important contributions to the Civil War. There’s no doubt that this is the result of the focus on him in both Shaara’s book and Turner’s film. There’s also the fact of the compelling story: professor of rhetoric, no military training whatsoever, becomes Medal of Honor winning hero who accepts the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. There’s also the point that Chamberlain unquestionably had a true gift for the English language. His writings–in florid Victorian prose–are nevertheless some of the finest writings I have ever read.

Because of the combination of all of these factors, and probably others I haven’t even thought of, Chamberlain receives a very disproportionate amount of attention for his exploits. It’s reached the point that Chamberlain is almost treated like a saint, and the 20th Maine’s spur becomes the destination of an almost religious pilgrimage. It means that, much as I admire Chamberlain, I’m sick to death of hearing about him, and it caused me, a number of years ago, to jestingly dub him St. Joshua of Joshua Top. In the first year or two after the release of the movie, the 20th Maine’s spur was so crowded with people searching for Buster Kilrain’s name on the regimental monument that you almost couldn’t move up there. Fortunately, as the years have passed, this has subsided a bit, but the whole St. Joshua of Joshua Top mentality survives. It never ceases to amaze me.

While any attention to the Civil War is a good thing, this whole St. Joshua of Joshua Top phenomenon unfortunately means that other, equally deserving heroes, such as Brig. Gen. George Sears Greene, whose defense of Culp’s Hill had greater military significance than did Chamberlain’s defense of Little Round Top, have been largely shunted into history’s dustpan, largely forgotten, and certainly not receiving the credit they deserve. Is it right? No, it definitely is not right. Is it understandable? Yes, it is. Is it unfortunate? Absolutely. Can anything be done about it? Sadly, probably not. As long as people’s first impressions of the Battle of the Gettysburg continue to result from either Shaara’s book or Turner’s movie adaptation of it, this unfortunate phenomenon will continue on unabated.

And it means that equally worthy and deserving soldiers will continue to be overlooked in favor of St. Joshua of Joshua Top. It also means that equally important and interesting spots, such as Culp’s Hill, where the Union truly was saved, go largely unvisited and are often deserted. What’s wrong with this picture?

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I’m up very early this morning, which is very unusual for a national holiday. The dogs, and in particular, Aurora, were very restless this morning, so much so, in fact, that I figured it would be better all around if I just took them downstairs and let Susan sleep, things would ultimately be better for everyone. Being up this early enabled me to spend a few minutes reflecting on the true meaning of today’s holiday.

In the spring of 1866, a scant year after the end of the Civil War, Henry Welles, a pharmacist from upstate New York, came up with the idea to honor the dead of the recent conflict by decorating their graves. By 1868, Decoration Day was being observed officially throughout the north. In 1971, Congress decreed that the holiday’s name be changed to Memorial Day, which would be celebrated on the final Monday of each May. For many (if not most), it marks the unofficial beginning of summer and provides a day off from work for most of the population.

While many celebrate their day off with cook-outs and the year’s first trip to the swimming pool, it’s important to remember the true meaning of this holiday: honoring the memory of those who gave the last full measure of their devotion to defend the liberty of this country and its people.

My father will be 86 years old in August, meaning that he was 21 in December 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He is a part of what journalist Tom Brokaw rightfully calls the greatest generation, which was that generation of Americans who won World War II. He was employed building warplanes, so he was never drafted. However, two of his brothers served. My uncle Murray was a pharmacist, so he spent most of the war working in a hospital, taking care of wounded men. My uncle Mort was a staff sergeant who commanded an Army Air Corps maintenance crew. He was at Kasserine Pass, and then fought his way up the boot of Italy. He died in 1980, while I was a sophomore in college. During my not-quite nineteen years with him, I only got him to talk about the war once, and then for only a few minutes. It is one of my deep regrets that I never got a chance to record his story for posterity, for it is now lost forever. He gave me my first Civil War books–Bruce Catton’s trilogy on the Army of the Potomac when I was in the fourth grade–and I was always especially close to him.

I also had a brother-in-law who was a career Marine. Joe had been in the Corps for something like eighteen years when he died on active duty in 1996. Joe was a staff sergeant who was about to be promoted to gunnery sergeant. He had served in Panama, Somalia, and in Desert Storm, among other conflicts. His unit was the first to hit the beach in Kuwait City in 1991, and we believe that he may have been exposed to caustic chemicals along the way, because this man, who died at age 36, who was in peak physical condition, and who never smoked a day in his life, was the victim of a very rare and aggressive form of lung cancer that took his life within six months of diagnosis.

These three veterans have touched my life in a real way, and none of them are here for me to thank in person for their sacrifices on my behalf. I regret that they aren’t, but there isn’t much I can do about that. We’re losing World War II veterans at the rate of 1,000 per day, and before long, there won’t be any left. Korean War veterans aren’t far behind, and even Vietnam War vets are now in their fifties and early sixties.

If you know a veteran, please take a moment today and thank him or her for their service and for what they do to safeguard the liberties that we enjoy today. And please remember Abraham Lincoln’s words at the dedication of the National Cemetery in Gettysburg in November 1863:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

And here’s to the memory of Sgt. Morris Wittenberg, U.S. Army Reserve, Staff Sgt. Morton L. Wittenberg, U. S. Army Air Corps, and Staff Sgt. Joseph R. Pacitto, USMC. Thank you for everything that you did to ensure the liberty that we enjoy today. Let’s just hope that we still have some civil liberties left when the felon leaves the White House in 2008 (a day that CANNOT come soon enough), and that their sacrifices will still mean something.

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Today marks my second day back at the office after our vacation. I thought that I was pretty much caught up, as I did a lot of work while we were gone (technology makes doing so easy), I’ve been absolutely buried the last two days. I had four different appointments today, meaning that I got very little else done during the day today. I am pretty much caught up, but it means that I’m not making any real progress. That, of course, is the thing that I was dreading while I was gone, and my fears have come to pass.

This week–probably on Thursday night–I will get back to being productive on my Civil War work. Although it’s been since the first week in March since I’ve done anything of any consequence on my biography of Ulric Dahlgren, and Thursday night, it looks like I will finally be able to get back to work. Chasing Aurora was largely a full-time job for the first three months of her stay with us (and she apparently had an accident in the kitchen a little while ago), and with Susan listing books on Amazon for our book-selling business, it’s taken virtually all of my evenings since then watching her.

We’ve come up with a formula that will work that will permit us to switch off nights watching her, and that will give me an opportunity to get back to work. I have to admit that, while the break was nice, I’ve missed being productive, and I am ready to get back to it.

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Well, after two weeks on the road, we got home to Columbus this afternoon about 3:00. Rather than try to drive the nearly eleven hours straight through, we left yesterday and broke up the trip. My original plan was to spend last night in Charlottesville, which is really a beautiful town. However, yesterday was the University of Virginia’s graduation, and there were no rooms to be found anywhere remotely nearby. Instead, we decided to go on to another college town, Lexington, home of VMI and Washington & Lee University.

We found a hotel room and went in search of dinner and a theater to see The DaVinci Code. While driving around Lexington, we had a look at the two college campuses–they make a stark contrast–and then stumbled upon Stonewall Jackson Cemetery. I actually had no intention to doing so, and I definitely wasn’t looking for it. However, having stumbled upon it, I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to go in. We visited Old Blue Light’s grave, and then went on. Unfortunately, it was too late to visit Robert E. Lee and Traveler, so I will have to save that for another trip.

The Outer Banks were just spectacular. We had a great time there–I could easily see spending the rest of my life there without much difficulty. We made some new friends, ate some great food, got a golden retriever puppy fix (thanks, Roy, Charlie and Brunson), flew a kite on the beach, visited all four light houses, climbed two of them, and ate some really terrific sea food. All things considered, it was an incredible trip, even if we did have to cram two weeks’ worth of stuff into Susan’s New Beetle convertible, which is, for all intents and purposes, a two-seat car with a TINY trunk. She’s a packing wizard, and we managed, but I’m still not sure how (I made my first trip to a coin laundromat since college, and remembered why I find them distasteful).

Saturday morning, the last thing we did before we left was to visit the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk, including climbing the Big Hill, as it’s known, to visit the gorgeous art deco monument atop the hill. Living just an hour from Dayton, I’ve been hearing about the Wright Brothers and their feat for as long as I’ve lived in Ohio, so it was a real treat finally seeing the site where they made their fame. I’d already seen one of their flyers at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, so I knew what to expect, but it was moving to see the reproduction of their flyer where it made history.

I’m not happy about being home, and I’m a lot less happy about the prospects of returning to work tomorrow after being gone for two weeks. However, the dogs were thrilled to see us, and we were even more thrilled to see them after two long weeks. Aurora has grown a great deal while we’ve been gone, and she’s no longer the tiny puppy she was when we left. She’s almost ready to start making the switch to adult food from her puppy food. It seems like just yesterday that we brought her home.

The only good thing about being home is that I will be getting back to work on Dahlgren in earnest this week for the first time since the first week of March. After fourteen days of sleeping in bad hotel beds, we’re REALLY looking forward to our Tempurpedic tonight. So, I guess that means being home is a mixed bag. 🙂

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Well, we have one more full day here before heading back to Ohio. We’re leaving on Saturday morning, and are planning on breaking up the trip by spending Saturday night in Staunton, VA. We will drive back to Columbus from Staunton on Sunday. While I REALLY miss our dogs, I really don’t want to go home. I could easily stay here, perhaps for years.

On Tuesday, we met up with Drew Pullen, who is a local historian who has done a great deal of work on the Civil War in the eastern portion of North Carolina. Drew is a retired school teacher who manages a bank branch on Hatteras Island. There’s probably nobody who knows more about this than Drew. We spent much of our time on the 1861 naval campaign that led to the fall of Forts Clark and Hatteras on Hatteras Island. We did a little on Burnside’s campaign, but we ran out of time.

Dare County, which is the county where most of the Outer Banks lie, has spent a great deal of money trying to promote Civil War tourism. It has erected some absolutely magnificent monuments reflecting the county’s role in the Civil War. They’re very impressive…nicer by far than one finds on some of the battlefields owned by the National Park Service. They include etchings of contemporary illustrations of events, and they’re quite handsome. All of them contain text on both sides.

After Burnside captured Hatteras Island, he sent the 20th Indiana regiment to the far north end of the island, where it established its camp in an effort to provide an early warning system in case the Confederates tried to re-take the island. The Hoosiers established their camp at a place called Chicamacomico. When Confederate infantry advanced, the Hoosiers bugged out, racing nearly twenty miles back to the main Union camp, running in 90+ degree heat and high humidity. The event is called the Chicamacomico Races to this day. There are several handsome monuments along the course of their march, and it’s an extremely amusing episode.

On Tuesday night, I spoke to the Outer Banks Civil War Roundtable. The group meets at a beautiful country club on the northern end of Bodie Island. The group has about 50 members, which is quite impressive for a group that’s only a year old. Their meeting format, however, is unique–like nothing I have ever seen. They have a cocktail hour, followed by a cold cut buffet dinner. There is no business meeting at all. I was introduced and then started speaking. They also take a break in the middle of the talk. I REALLY didn’t like that–it interrupted my flow, and was just plain strange. In truth, I think it’s because some of the members really needed another drink to make it through the talk. 🙂

In truth, I really enjoyed the group, and I would be happy to come back and speak here again if they ever were to ask me to do so.

We’ve also visited three of the four lighthouses. We stopped at the Bodie Island light house, and climbed to the top of both the Hatteras and Currituck Beach light houses. Hatteras is 250 steps to the top, and the winds were howling when we got up there. Currituck was very different–it’s only 218 steps up–and there was no wind to speak of when we got to the top. I doubt that we will get to see the Ocracoke light house on this trip–it’s a full day to go down there, and since tomorrow is our last day here, we don’t want to tie up the entire day that way. We are going to visit the Wright Brothers Memorial tomorrow–our trip would not be complete without a visit there.

See everyone once we get home.

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