Making Progress

Last Friday, when we went to Trevilian Station, I photographed about a dozen sites around the battlefield. These photos will be used in the new edition of my study of Sheridan’s Trevilian Raid that will be published by Bison Books in 2007. Although I was hoping to add new material to the main body of the book, I understand why that would be very difficult. It would change everything, from pagination to the existing index, and everything else.

Instead, we agreed that I would be permitted to add a driving tour of the raid that will feature about a dozen contemporary views of the battlefield, which explains the photography last week. I’ve been working on putting together the driving tour, which will be a bit different from the one that was included in the 2002 issue of Blue and Gray magazine that was dedicated to the Trevilian Raid. Things have changed since we originally put that tour together, and it needed more detail and an update.

After a lot of work, I finished the revised driving tour tonight. All that remains to be done is to download the photos from my digital camera and burn the whole works to a CD-ROM, and it’s all done, ready to go to the publisher. I will do that this weekend, and then the project is complete. That’s one that I can check off my list of open and pending projects, which is always a good thing.

There’s still plenty of work to be done on other projects, of course–I still have to incorporate the additional set of letters that’s coming into my new regimental history of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, which will arrive in a week or so. I also have in excess of 100 illustrations to scan for that book and a dozen or so maps. Once I get that stuff done, then that project can, after a dozen-plus years, also be put to bed. After so many years, it hardly seems possible that it will be finished, but so it is.

There’s always more. J. D. Petruzzi and I are kicking around an idea that will be a monumental task, probably requiring two volumes in order to do it right. More on that later, as the idea coalesces.

For now, fear not. I am plenty busy.