Spam is one of the greatest irritants of my life. Because I am active on-line, I get more spam e-mail than you can shake a stick at. It clogs my mailboxes and bugs me to no end. If I had my way–if I was king of the world–spamming and virus writing would be subject to the death penalty. Justice would be swift, painful, and there would be no right of appeal. Death would be by the most slow, painful torture I can conjure up.

The latest tactic that these scumbag lowlifes have adopted is to spam blogs, too. Tonight alone, I have gotten six attempts to insert spam comments into various posts on this blog. Fortunately, my controls are set …

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While doing some updating to my Rush’s Lancers manuscript this evening to incorporate some of the material that I put up last night on Albert P. Morrow, I noticed that Morrow’s service records indicated that while he was a POW the last time, he was charged with a violation of Article 42 of the Articles of War. Now mind you, I may be a lawyer, but I’m not particularly familiar with the Articles of War as they existed in 1863. In fact, my knowledge of them is minimal at best. So, in order to describe this episode accurately in the footnote, I had to find out precisely what he was being charged with doing.

Consequently, I did a Google search …

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Time for another of my periodic tributes to forgotten cavalrymen.

Albert Payson Morrow, born in 1842, was from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He was named for the town of Payson, Illinois. His father was the headmaster of the Hugh Morrow Select Boarding School in Hatboro, a private school he owned and operated. Ally, as he was known to the family, was a slender, handsome young man, 5’11”, with a fair complexion and flashing blue eyes. He was a scholarly sort who preferred Shakespeare and considered himself to be an expert on the subject. He often helped his father teach the younger boys. As a youth, Albert expected to become a teacher and to follow in his father’s footsteps.

In April 1861, …

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As I have mentioned here previously, I provide forum boards for discussion for folks at the Civil War Discussion Group. Although these boards were already in the works at the time of the demise of a prior group run by a con man who conned me and a lot of others, upon the demise of that group–which was solely devoted to the Battle of Gettysburg–my boards replaced the con man’s boards. Thus, the majority of my members are Gettysburg people. I get that. In fact, it even makes sense to me. In a very real sense, I am a Gettysburg person, too. It’s always been–and always will be–my first love when it comes to the Civil War.

At …

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Morris Island is a spit of sand just south of Charleston Harbor. During the Civil War, it was the site of Battery Wagner, a formidable sand fort that helped to defend the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Because of the narrowness of the island and the fact that any attacking forces had to run a gauntlet to get there, Battery Wagner never fell during the Civil War. It was also the place where the 54th Massachusetts Infantry made its ill-fated but heroic attack, as depicted in the Oscar-winning 1989 film Glory. No matter what, Morris Island played a major role in the drama that played out as the Union made attempt after attempt to force the surrender of Charleston throughout …

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Prof. Brian Dirck has joined the blogosphere with an interesting and well-written blog on Lincoln and the Civil War. The primary focus is Lincoln, and not the military aspects of the war, but I found the topics interesting and refreshing. I’ve added a link to Brian’s blog on my list of Blogs I Like. Check it out, and welcome, Brian.

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Time for some further updating on several book projects.

Ted Savas told me today that my Monroe’s Crossroads book is at the printer. We inserted the last of the maps on Tuesday, so it’s been there for a couple of days. This means that in about a month, we will have books. This book is apparently being selected as an alternate book of the month for the History Book Club, although we’re waiting for final confirmation of this.

That the Monroe’s Crossroads book is now completely finished now means that Ted’s getting started on the book on Stuart’s Ride in the Gettysburg Campaign that I did with J. D. Petruzzi. This book is scheduled for release just before the anniversary …

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The following statement now appears on the web site of Western Union: “Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage. ” This means that there is no company left in the United States that offers telegram services.

The telegram, of course, has become obsolete. The downhill slide began with the deregulation of long distance telephone services–cheap long distance meant that people slowed down their use of telegrams. Then, the advent of cell phones, the Internet, and e-mail all combined to make telegrams completely obsolete. There really is no reason to use telegrams any more, and Western Union …

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Okay, here’s another dilemma.

I use DHL Express for my overnight shipping needs. I was a loyal Airborne Express customer, and then when DHL merged with Airborne, my account switched over. In the legal business, we do a lot of overnight shipping of things. I’m convinced that we lawyers keep FedEx and DHL in business. Sending stuff overnight has become routine.

I’m also an Internet junkie. That comes from previously owning an Internet service provider, which Susan and I did at one time. Consequently, e-mail has become crucial to my way of life. Because of that, I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a Blackberry (aka Crackberry, as they’re so damned addictive) for some time. The thing that has …

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Dimitri Rotov has a fabulous post on his blog today about Ethan Rafuse’s treatment of the crisis of command that occurred between September 1-5, 1862. In an extremely thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of Ethan’s discussion of these events, Dimitri has done much to educate me. This is a period that is of interest to me, but at the same time, it’s always been tangential to my work, so I’ve not gone into a great deal of detail in examining it. In reading Dimitri’s post today, I’ve learned a great deal in the process.

What I like about Dimtri’s approach here is that he’s very methodical and very analytical, giving credit where Ethan got something right, and pointing out where got …

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