I decided early on not to write book reviews on this site. Other sites are dedicated to that noble task and, as the historians and reviewers at those sites do a terrific job, I will leave the book reviews to them. I am, however, happy to make readers aware of new books of special merit. William J.…
One of the themes I plan to examine from time to time is the inter-action between the Union cavalry and Southern civilians. This relationship was, understandably, fractious at best and frequently fraught with danger, for soldier and civilian alike. All too often the soldiers and non-combatants were verbally and physically abusive toward each other. Confrontations…
The officer was a bit of an anomaly; a Union colonel with a Deep South accent, wearing a Mexican serape against the pre-dawn chill. Shortly after stepping into the saddle he spurred his horse into the Rappahannock River. The placid waters were soon churning, as hundreds of troopers in Union blue followed in his wake. …
As I prepared my last post describing Union attempts to burn the Waterloo Bridge, I was also reading Seizing Destiny, The Army of the Potomac’s “Valley Forge” and the Civil War Winter that Saved the Union, by Albert Conner Jr., and Chris Mackowski. One of the first offensive operations described by the authors is the…
My wife and I spent a very pleasant afternoon recently at our favorite vineyard, Winding Road Cellars, on Leeds Manor Road in Markham. On the way home, as we passed through the historic hamlets of Hume and Orleans, we noticed multiple signs announcing the local effort to Save the Historic Waterloo Bridge. There was a time,…
Last week I joined Bruce and Lynne Venter, of America’s History, LLC, on their Kill Jeff Davis: The Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid on Richmond in 1864 tour. Bruce is the author of the recently released, and highly-regarded, book of the same title. The tour was well-timed, as most of the participants had recently read Bruce’s book. I had…
The editors of the Official Records assumed a staggering task when they began gathering and organizing the thousands of battle reports, telegrams, letters and other documents held by the War Department following the Civil War. The work was actually authorized before the final guns went silent in the spring of 1865. The task took decades,…
