J.D.

Honored to hear from you! Well, to be quite honest, it’s often been said that Jeb Stuart’s ride to Gettysburg, and the retreat from Gettysburg, had been told and done to death.

Regardless, when we began gathering sources for each of those stories, they began to shape the events much more fully than before. In the event of Jeb’s ride, we began developing a perspective on his decision-making that hadn’t yet been explored. And previously there had been precious little ever put together on the fights at Fairfax Court House or the shelling of Carlisle. We discovered a good amount of material on the battle of Hanover that completely changed the interpretation of it. And a mountain of primary source never used in telling the fight at Hunterstown came to us. No book had ever fully told the story of the resulting controversy of Stuart’s ride and performance until our 3 chapters on the subject.

Our book on the Gettysburg Retreat developed the same way – Brown’s masterful study didn’t fully tell the story of the 22 fights and skirmishes from July 4 – 14, and no book yet fully explored Meade’s decision-making.

In the case of Jube’s Raid, we have combed all present and past works, including your own, and we determined to put our twist on it – telling the narrative in the context of all else that was taking place. There is yet much to be said about the Johnson-Gilmor Raid, and the fight at Ft. Stevens still hasn’t received a modern study. Judging by the amount of material we’ve gathered, we see the door open to tell this story just as we explored Jeb’s ride and the Gettysburg retreat. We are building on the wonderful work you and others have done, to lay the groundwork for such a study as ours.

I think I speak for Eric as well when I say we’d be honored if you would be involved as we work through the project, and give us your thoughts and critique as we get closer to putting it together.

Best regards,
J.D. Petruzzi

I thought you’d pick up on that 🙂 Charles’ letters of the period definitely betray a sense of anxiety.

We’ll begin writing very soon, and with any luck we should complete it sometime by late summer/early fall, which may mean a release sometime early 2009 if all goes well.

J.D.

I can’t honestly tell you when it will be available, as we haven’t even begun writing yet.

It will definitely include a driving/walking tour.

Thanks for your enthusiasm.

Eric

Eric