Goodbye, 2006 and Hello, 2007

I hope everyone enjoyed a safe and enjoyable New Year’s Eve last night. With Susan not yet a month post-surgical, we kept it pretty calm and pretty quiet.

2006 was quite a year, both for me and for this country. On the national front, the electorate spoke and did something about trying to put the brakes on the dictatorial presidency. Don Rumsfeld finally resigned. And hopefully, George W. Bush realized that things get pretty lonely out there on the fringes.

As for me, 2006 was an unprecedented year. I changed jobs, hopefully bettering my lot in life. I had three books published this year, all to critical acclaim. One of them fulfilled a twelve year labor of love that I can only hope did the boys of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry justice. Another was the fulfillment of my own need to study and learn about an obscure battle about which little has been written. The third marks my successful and enjoyable collaboration with J. D. Petruzzi, the first what will, I’m sure, be many similar projects. We had a front-cover article published in Civil War Times and our book was the featured review in America’s Civil War. All things considered, it was a really remarkable year.

It was a year in which not a lot of really good Civil War books were published, but a fair amount of really mediocre stuff was. I can only hope that’s a temporary situation and not a permanent one. The volume of good new works on the Civil War seems to be decreasing, and that this changes dramatically in 2007. If not, our beloved field of pursuit and interest is in trouble.

2007 will not lead to the publication of anywhere close to the volume of material that was published in 2006. I will have an article in the next issue of North & South, which was actually written about six years ago, and which has been awaiting publication ever since, as well as an article by J. D. and me in the next issue of Gettysburg Magazine. Hopefully, I will finish up Dahlgren and move on, but don’t expect another burst of books from me in 2007, because it won’t happen.

I have only made one resolution this year: not to make a resolution. Other than that, I’m just going to take things as they come.

Again, Susan joins me in wishing all of you a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2007.