“In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.”

So said Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain years after the end of the Civil War. This passage, which has, unfortunately, become somewhat cliched over the years, still …

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Like Brett Schulte, I also intend to invite a few select friends to post here from time to time. I hope you will welcome their contributions as warmly as you have welcomed mine so far.

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I wanted to take a moment to thank two people who inspired me to do this. Prof. Mark Grimsley of The Ohio State University has a unique blog. Mark uses his blog in an effort to explore ways to assist in the evolution of academic military history. It’s called Blog Them Out of the Stone Age. Mark focuses on the role that military history plays in the academic world, and also offers interesting insights into his own personality and what drives him. I have always admired and respected his courage in putting himself out there in such a public fashion. When I told Mark that I was thinking about doing this, he was full of encouragement.

Dimitri Rotov maintains …

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I think that I get asked this question more than any other. I have to admit that there are times when I grow thoroughly sick of it. The obvious answer, of course, is why not the Civil War?

However, that oversimplifies things too much and is probably a bit too flippant to be an appropriate response. So, I will attempt to answer the question here.

No other period in American history impacted this country more than did the period 1861-1865. 600,000 Americans died in an internecine struggle that was probably inevitable. With the tension between Federalism and states rights that marked the great compromises of the Constitutional Convention, it became obvious that one side or the other had to win …

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Google has commenced a program intended to make more books available on-line, in a free digital format. As an author, I have intensely mixed feelings about this program. On one hand, anything that promotes the further distribution of books or which in any way spreads the word about my work is potentially a good thing. Likewise, I wholeheartedly support the idea of making public domain works available for free in a digital format. Everyone wins there, and no authors are hurt since their entitlement to royalties expired long ago. However, as a lawyer, there is little doubt in my mind that that portion of this program that deals with works that are still subject to protection constitutes copyright infringement on …

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A version of this post has previously appeared on Bret Schulte’s blog.

I’ve always been one to buck settled history. In my mind, the only way to make sure that history remains a living, breathing, evolving thing is to challenge its settled assumptions. Properly and responsibly done, revisionism can be a powerful and welcome tool that causes us all to sit back and ask whether we should change the way we look at things. Consequently, I’ve always been known as one who’s not afraid of tilting at windmills.

However, doing so carries a great deal of responsibility. Whenever we challenge settled interpretations of history, we must do so carefully. Words are an extraordinarily powerful tool, and the choice of words …

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This was originally posted on Brett Schulte’s blog.

Drew Wagenhoffer had a piece on his blog this week about lawyers who write Civil War history. He had a list of us, myself included. Fortunately, most of us are well-respected names like Gordon Rhea, Kent Masterson Brown, Russel “Cap” Beatie, and the dean of all of us, Alan Nolan. It’s been my good fortune to be able to count Gordon and Kent as friends—Gordon graced my study of Sheridan’s Trevilian Raid with an excellent foreword—and I know Alan Nolan from attending the Gettysburg College Civil War Institute. Alan’s book Lee Considered served as the model for my book Little Phil: An Assessment of the Civil War Generalship of Philip H. Sheridan…

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This is something that I have been wanting to do for a while, but unfortunately, my wife Susan and I are both way too busy for our own good at times. Consequently, it’s taken longer than I might have hoped to get this blog started. However, I have quite a bit that I want to say, and I hope that those of you who decide to come along for the ride find it worthwhile.

For those who don’t know me, I am a Civil War cavalry historian. I’m also a practicing attorney in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve had ten books published to date, with another one in the works. I’ve also had more that two dozen articles published in national Civil …

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This is the home of www.civilwarcavalry.com, a premiere site about the cavalry of the American Civil War, as well as other Civil War topics of interest. This site is owned by Eric Wittenberg, a Civil War historian and author.

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