This rant has been brewing all day.

Please put this in the “stuff I hate” category. It also fits squarely within the “stuff that frustrates the hell out of me” category.

In the course of researching my Ulric Dahlgren biography, I found the published pamphlet of the eulogy for Ully delivered by Rev. Bernard Sunderland, the minister who watched Ully grow up. The eulogy was delivered a few weeks after Dahlgren’s death even though the body was missing, and then the thing was published shortly thereafter. There is a frustrating, tantalizing little tidbit in this thing that has been driving me nuts.

By way of background, Ulric Dahlgren attended Rittenhouse Academy in Washington, DC as a boy. He left there …

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On February 16, I learned of the senseless vandalism of three handsome monuments on the battlefield at Gettysburg. Vandals pulled the top stone and sculpture off of the 11th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Monument, dedicated on October 8, 1885. The 11th Massachusetts monument is located on Emmitsburg Road at the intersection of Sickles Avenue. Vandals pulled down the bronze sculpture of a Zouave infantryman from the pedestal of the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Monument, dedicated on July 2, 1886, located at the Sherfy house on Emmitsburg Road. The figure landed on a decorative iron fence that was also damaged. Finally, the bronze figure of a cannoneer topping the monument to Smith’s battery, in the Devil’s Den area, suffered $100,000 worth of …

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Here are a couple of updates on a couple of things….

1. Ted Savas informed me today that the release date for my book on the Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads is the third week in March. The book is at the printer. It’s also under review by the History Book Club for an alternative book of the month selection. I will keep folks posted as the date draws near.

2. I’ve been fighting the neo-Confederate wars again today on my forum boards. I think I’ve won this particular battle, but what a waste of valuable time and energy. As I said here previously, I will never stop fighting these battles.

That’s it for now. There will, undoubtedly, be more to …

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Kevin Levin responded to yesterday’s post on military history in a social hisstory world. Thanks for reading Kevin, and thanks also for taking the time to formulate a thoughtful response. I wanted to respond to a couple of issues raised by Kevin.

First, Kevin said: “Firstly, I hope Eric has more to say surrounding his comment on Rable’s Fredericksburg study. Given that the book won a number of important scholarly awards from reputable institutions it is hard to take seriously the conclusion that it ‘fails to provide a complete view of either the military or social aspects.'” Here’s the response you asked for, Kevin. Your own point–that it has won scholarly awards from institutions–suggests to me that you’re referring to …

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As he so often does, Mark Grimsley’s blog features an especially interesting line of discussion about where the discipline of military history fits into an academic world that treats it like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. The recent trend among academic history seems to be to downplay military history; Mark mentions a request that was posted on an H-Net list by a modern historian who was far from excited about the prospect of his students looking at issues of military history.

Some have tried to cross this gap by doing interdisciplinary work. George Rable’s book on the Fredericksburg Campaign attempts to do this and fails to provide a complete view of either the military or the social aspects. Ed Hagerty tried …

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I would also be remiss if I didn’t wish all of you a happy Valentine’s Day. So, happy Valentine’s Day to you and yours!

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WARNING: Today’s post has absolutely nothing to do with the Civil War.

After three-plus months of inexplicable delays, Susan and I today began our grand adventure.

As I write this, the excavators are finishing up the digging of the hole for the foundation for our new house. The process of building a house is something entirely new for both of us. I grew up in a condo complex, and the house we live in now was built in 1969. Susan grew up in two houses–one more than one hundred years old, and the other more than fifty. Consequently, this whole process is pretty alien to both of us.

We’re building in a very small but rapidly expanding community. Five years …

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This post is related to my last post on the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

For a long time, I’ve been a bit embarrassed by just how little I knew about the Spanish-American War, so I made a conscious choice to change that after Susan and I visited Key West in October 2003. I made a point of seeking out and finding the memorial to the dead sailors of the U.S.S. Maine who were interred in the city cemetery in Key West. Interestingly, the anchor of the Maine is in my home town of Reading, PA, and I always knew that, but I knew very little about how it got there or its significance.

One thing that strikes me about what …

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A few observations about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which I’ve done some reading about over the past few years:

1. Napoleon III most assuredly did not inherit his uncle’s military prowess. In fact, he was almost completely incompetent. He reminds me a great deal of the current occupant of the White House: all gung-ho for war, and then incapable of doing the job correctly. Both were utterly incompetent war-time leaders.

2. The Schlieffen Plan worked big time in 1870, just like it did in 1940, and as it nearly did in 1914. You would have thought that the French would have learned something from that, but they certainly didn’t.

3. If the Civil War was the last Napoleonic war, …

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Mark Grimsley has an interesting post on his blog today about writing. Like me, Mark has been writing in some form or another for nearly his entire life. Like me, it’s something that he struggles with, constantly trying to improve his skills. In his post, Mark mentions a book titled Professors as Writers, which is intended to help academics improve their writing skills. What makes this pertinent to me is that the book seems to provide a recipe for making the most effective and most productive use of small blocks of time.

Mark’s days are filled with teaching, grading papers, meeting/counseling students and advisees, tending to his bureaucratic/administrative duties at the university, and shoehorning in time to do research. …

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