"Plenty of Blame To Go Around" in paperback June 2011

Eric Wittenberg and I were just informed by our publisher, Savas Beatie LLC, that our first book together Plenty of Blame To Go Around: Jeb Stuart's Controversial Ride to Gettysburg will be out in paperback this coming June. This book appeared in 2006, and is a comprehensive narrative of Confederate cavalry commander Jeb Stuart's ride to Pennsylvania with three of his brigades. We begin just after the battle of Brandy Station, detail the orders and planning that went into the ride, and then narrate the ensuing eight days of the cavalry's exploits from Virginia through Maryland and then to Gettysburg. Stuart got into several scraps along the way, including the capture of the Federal supply train at Rockville, a nasty skirmish at Westminster, an all-day brawl at Hanover, and then Wade Hampton's fight against Judson Kilpatrick at Hunterstown on July 2.

We're very excited to see this volume come to paperback, just as our second book One Continuous Fight (about the retreat from Gettysburg and the companion volume) did about a month ago. Paperback volumes reach a wider audience, and it also gives us the opportunity to make a couple minor tweaks to the original issue. We found a couple interesting tidbits recently that add to the interpretation of the fight at Westminster, for instance, and we're able now to work in a few sentences of the additional information.

If you've been waiting for this book to come out in softcover, this summer will be your chance to pick it up.

Very nice honor - and two new books!

Steve Stanley and I were very humbled recently when we were informed that our The Complete Gettysburg Guide was placed on the Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guides' list of "Recommended Reading" for the Guide exam last year. We're very honored that a prestigious group such as the Guides feel that our book provides helpful information to candidates.

Right now, Steve and I are hard at work on our next two books for Savas Beatie (hence the paucity of blog posts the past few weeks). Both of the books should be out in May. The first is The New Gettysburg Campaign Handbook, which is in the series of handbooks that Savas Beatie has been producing. Ted Savas and J. David Dameron produced a volume on the Revolutionary War, and Mark Hughes wrote the volume that covers the Civil War. Our volume features lots of campaign statistics, biographies, interesting facts, a discussion of controversies, and the most accurate and updated comprehensive Order of Battle for Gettysburg. The books features maps and design by Steve - each page and each map is in full color! For the background of each page, in fact, Steve has used a page from one of Jedediah Hotchkiss' map pages. The look is simply stunning. Each page is heavy, glossy stock.

The second book, which we're writing concurrently, is an expansion of those Orders of Battle - hopefully a resource that everyone will find useful - Orders for nearly every conflict of the entire campaign! Tentatively titled The Complete Gettysburg Campaign Orders of Battle and Numbers and Losses, it lists Orders for every single conflict during the campaign, and includes all strength and casualty figures for each. Each Order is introduced with a narrative that explains the conflict, and places it in context with the rest of the campaign. Again, Steve is doing the complete design of the book for Savas Beatie. Every single page is in full color on heavy, glossy paper that will last a lifetime.

Much more on these new books to come. Please stay tuned!