Gettin' organized

Since my carpal tunnel syndrome limits my writing temporarily, I've been working the last few nights getting the books in my library organized. When I first shelved them in the new library, they were somewhat organized - all the cavalry stuff, all the Gettysburg books, etc., were in sections of their own. The rest was pretty much a mish-mash. I could find things, but I often did spend a lot of time going through the nearly 4,000 volumes to find a book, and there was really no rhyme or reason to most of the shelves.

Even the cavalry shelves were not truly organized - regimentals, reminiscences, biographies, battles and campaigns - all were mixed together. The only thing I had separated was Federal subjects from Confederate.

Now I'm digging in. Now all Federal regimentals are separated, and organized by state. Same for the Confederate (I have every single regimental ever published). All battles and campaigns are separated and organized chronologically. And biographies are alphabetical in their section. And all those shelves are labeled. Gotta find Convis' bio of Myles Keogh? Sure - it's beside Pohanka's and right between the Wade Hampton bios and Fitz Lee!

Now I'm moving on to battles/campaigns - I haven't decided whether to do them chronologically or alphabetically. I'm leaning toward alphabetical, though. Anyone have any suggestions? It may look weird on the shelves having the Antietam books next to Appomattox, but they'd be easy to find.

I think, too, that once I have all the volumes organized, I'm going to start my own Dewey Decimal system of sorts. For example, let's say I make Federal cavalry regimental histories category 100. Organized alphabetically by state, the first would be 100.1, the next 100.2, etc. Should a new one come out, it can be numbered and placed in proper order. Then maybe Confederate regimentals would be the 101 section. Gettysburg and each of its sections might be 102, 103 etc. Battles and campaigns would go alpabetically in their own sections. Making all those little number labels for the spines will be, uh, fun... I think?

The numbering system would finally enable me to computerize a catalog of the books so I can finally list them for an easy search, too. That will really come in handy for the xerox and computer-printed copies of books I also have (thank goodness for that part of Google Books) - there are hundreds of them as well. I have each of those in binders, and there's no organization to them right now either. The thousands and thousands of copies of newspaper articles and manuscript documents is even worse - right now sometimes I have to hunt for hours to find a particular article or paper. (A joke around my house is when my wife asks, "Find it yet?" "No." "Find it yet?" "No!" "Find it yet?" "Noooooo!")

Anyway, I'm getting there. I fully expect that by the time I'm much too old and senile to write anymore, the library will finally be organized....

First volume of Audio Tours now on Amazon

Some of you may be aware that I am currently enjoying the pleasant symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands. Yes, it's a hoot, but I've been surprised lately how many folks have been afflicted with it. Seems as common as the common cold. It's pretty severe in my right hand, which makes it difficult to type and do other simple tasks. I have seen both my family doctor and a specialist, and will be scheduling surgery shortly. I look forward to getting back to normal and putting this behind me.

Volume One of the audio tours based on The Complete Gettysburg Guide is now on Amazon - see the page here. This volume is The Battlefield, containing 2 CDs totalling about 2 1/2 hours. It all comes in a full-color digipak, with an 8-page booklet containing maps by Steve Stanley - who in fact designed the entire package, just like the book. We really hope folks enjoy it, and riding and walking the battlefield with us. Future audio volumes, such as the cavalry battlefields and a "Hidden Gettysburg" volume will be announced soon!

"Next Guide" survey results are in!

Steve Stanley and I, as well as our publisher Ted Savas, would like to thank everyone who took the time to participate in our survey about the next "complete guide." I'm happy and gratified to say that 161 folks responded, and about 50 people left very helpful comments. The comments were probably the most useful part of the survey.

The top five choices in order of popularity were:

#1 - 1862 Maryland Campaign
#2 - 1863 Cavalry Battles
#3 - Petersburg Campaign
#4 - Chancellorsville
#5 - 1862 Valley Campaign

The Maryland Campaign was far and away the number one choice, garnering about 30% of the total vote. This confirms our decision to do that one next. Nearly all the research for the book is done, in fact. I begin writing next month, with several trips, visits, and tours to campaign sites being conducted over the summer. The book has already been contracted and we expect it to appear in time for the spring 2011 season. Antietam Chief Historian Ted Alexander has already agreed to write the Forward for the book.

I have to admit to being surprised that the 1863 cavalry battles (the Brandy Station fights, Aldie, Middleburg, Upperville) came in second. It may be that folks know my interest in the cavalry, and the lack of information about, and interest in, the fall Brandy Station fights, etc. may have driven the interest. We are definitely taking this under consideration. The fact that Petersburg was also so popular in the poll was very interesting.

I was surprised that the 1862 and 1864 Valley Campaigns did not score higher. Our thoughts were to do either separate volumes, or a combined volume, on these following the Maryland Campaign volume. That would coincide with anniversary dates, and we would also be working with the state and local historical societies - who have all expressed interest in a guide on these and working with Steve and I on them.

Next year, we will likely post a similar poll just to see how the choices come out then. I want to especially thank everyone for the very helpful and interesting comments left on the polling page. They were extremely fun and educational to read. One respondent reminded me of a Maryland Campaign skirmish I'd forgotten about, for instance. This poll has turned out to be an extremely useful tool and we heartily thank all who participated!

Interesting survey results thus far

The results of the survey (see below post) have been extremely interesting. I am going to leave the poll up until next Friday, so there is still time to vote.

There have been nearly 150 respondents, for which we are very grateful. Lots of folks have wanted to make their opinions and thoughts known, and we are extremely appreciative for the effort. Thus far, the Maryland Campaign is far and away the favorite subject for the next "Complete Guide," garnering about 40% of the vote. That one is indeed next, as Steve Stanley and I signed the contract for that book several months ago.

The Valley Campaigns, the 1863 Cavalry battles, and Petersburg have "fought" back and forth for second place. All the other choices in the poll have also been popular with many respondents, except for Mine Run and (surprisingly) Appomattox. I didn't expect Mine Run to do very well, but I was a bit taken aback that Appomattox got very few votes.

The written comments in the poll have also been extremely revealing. I have been reading them with a great deal of interest. One respondent reminded me, for example, of a minor skirmish during the Maryland Campaign that I'd completely forgotten about. Perhaps because the poll is anonymous, respondents feel free to speak their mind and all of them have been very positive.

There's still about a week left, so even though the Maryland Campaign work will indeed be next, we encourage people to still vote if they haven't yet. The answers are helping drive us toward what will be the project after that. Later this year or early next year I will put up a similar poll about that subsequent project and I expect it to be even more interesting.

By the way, many folks have been asking about the progress on the audio tour supplements for The Complete Gettysburg Guide. Steve is nearly finished with the package design for Volume One - The Battlefield, and I am recording the audio in a nearby professional recording studio this coming Wednesday, April 14. The 2-CD digipak for Volume One should be available no later than mid-May, with the subsequent two volumes to be released over June and July at the latest. They all will also be available as downloads, likely sooner than the digipak releases. Volume One is the audio tour of the entire main battlefield, on 2 discs (total 150 minutes). The package will contain several of Steve's maps.

The studio producer has been very helpful guiding me through the somewhat complicated process of producing a professional recording, and has been making it both easy and fun - and quite a learning process.

Stay tuned for more!

"Complete Guide" survey

If you can, please take a moment to vote in a survey I have created - "Which 'Complete Guide' of a battle or campaign in the Eastern Theater would you like to see?" I have listed several candidates for upcoming guides. There is also a space at the end to tell us why you voted as you did, or even suggest battles/campaigns not listed.

Please be assured that all responses are completely anonymous - I do not get any personal information from you. You can only vote once in the survey.

The responses and comments will really help us in our future decisions. I will leave the poll up for a couple weeks, and then report back on the results. As of today, 71 people have already voted, so please let us know your opinion. Thanks!

Spring has sprung, the itch has begun...

No, don't worry - I won't be giving up my avocation of historical writing to become a poet...

Here in western Pennsylvania, spring is finally in the air. After one of the coldest and most snow-infested winters I can remember in my 45 years, we are finally up in the 50s. There is still 6-8 inches of snow lying in most folks' yards, with some huge piles still around from the plowing and shoveling. But the melt and thaw has, hopefully, begun. There is still a lot of March left, however!

I'm looking forward to this summer - getting out and especially doing some battlefield visiting. Last summer, short as it was (spring was late and the freezing weather began in early October with snow soon after), it was even shorter for me. I lost most of August last year to an illness that knocked me out for the better part of the month, and I couldn't do many things around the house that I had planned. It was January until I was able to remodel a spare bedroom into my new library, a project I had hoped to do back in August.

The new guide book by Steve Stanley and I, following in the mould of The Complete Gettysburg Guide, will be the 1862 Antietam Campaign. That means lots of stomping around many of my favorite grounds this spring and summer - Antietam of course, but also South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, Shepherdstown, etc. I'm looking forward to it. The book will have the look and feel of the Gettysburg guide, featuring Steve's fabulous maps and photographs. There are so many obscure places and events that I'm looking forward to making available to visitors, and I know that the campaign experts helping us with the projects will have amazing things to contribute.

So here's to good health (hopefully!), sunshine, and lots of bug spray!

Gettysburg Guide a finalist for AHF book award

Steve Stanley and I were just notified that our book The Complete Gettysburg Guide has been selected as a finalist, in the Reference category, for the Army Historical Foundation's 2009 Book Award! We are quite flattered, and we are very grateful for the wonderful reviews and support that the book has received from Army officials.

I will be completing the script for Volume 1 (The Battlefield) of the audio supplement to the book in the next few days, and will begin the recording process right after that. More updates when we get closer to release of the CD and download.

June 23, 1863 Cashtown bushwacking

This Friday, I have scheduled my first trip to Gettysburg of the new year. I have been working, for the past several weeks, on the script for what will be the audio supplement to my latest book (with Steve Stanley), The Complete Gettysburg Guide. I need to make a trip to Gettysburg to lay out a detailed driving tour for a tour that will be included in the audio supplement - the June 23 bushwacking incident in the Cashtown Pass west of Gettysburg. This event is discussed briefly in the book, but there was unfortunately no room to include a tour of it. There has never been a tour published of the event, but friend and Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Gary Kross discussed it in a past issue of Blue&Gray Magazine (it's a great piece, but a few of the details of the incident are incorrect).

The bushwacking incident is one of those extremely obscure, little-known events of the Gettysburg Campaign. On June 23, a week prior to the battle, a company of the 14th Virginia Cavalry was conducting "reconnaissance" activities in the area of Caledonia. Many of the southern cavalry in Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins' brigade had been scouting, taking horses and mules, and many other provisions, all around the Chambersburg area since entering Pennsylvania a few days prior. After taking a few dozen horses and mules in the Caledonia area, the Virginia cavalrymen continued east toward the Cashtown Pass.

Just as they reach a set of thick woods at the pass, the Virginians saw a roadblock of trees and other debris. After charging and scattering some Home Guard militia and cavalry stationed there, the Virginians cleared the road and pressed on toward Cashtown. They didn't get very far, however, before a shotgun blast came out of the brush alongside the road, and one of the Virginians in the lead, Pvt. Eli Amick, caught lead in his abdomen and yelled, "I'm shot!"

Amick, a 42 year-old veteran of the Mexican War, was taken back to the Greenwood area (a few miles east of Chambersburg), where he soon died. Amick, then, was the first Confederate to be killed during the campaign so close to Gettysburg (but not the first in Pennsylvania). According to local story, a Cashtown-area resident, Henry Hahn, was the ringleader of a small group of men who waited to ambush the Confederates along the road, and was the self-admitted trigger-puller after the war. Ironically, Amick was known among the Federal food-chain as a "notorious guerilla and bushwacker" himself.

Especially since Amick suffered the distinction of being the first southerner killed so close to Gettysburg during the campaign, I have long found this episode very interesting. I've been collecting every bit of information I could find on it. It will be fun including the first-ever detailed tour of this incident in the audio supplement, and this Saturday I will be shooting the mileages and spots for the tour. The very historic corridor along old Route 30 west of Gettysburg to Cashtown is chock-full of historic sites and things to see, and I'm looking forward to this road trip.

Park Service puts Bob Kirby at Gettysburg's helm

According to a blurb on the Gettysburg Times website today:

National Park Service Northeast Regional Director Dennis R. Reidenbach has
named James Robert (Bob) Kirby as the new superintendant of Gettysburg National
Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site.

Kirby replaced John Latschar who was reassigned to Frederick.

Kirby, currently superintendant of Petersburg National Battlefield in
Virginia, will assume his new post in March. Acting Superintendant
Mel Poole will return to his position as superintendant of Catoctin Mountain
Park in Thurman, Maryland.

Well, there you have it. I don't know Bob personally, just of him, and that he's been very effective at Petersburg. He has a lot of ahead of him, that's for sure. I and everyone wish him the very best.

No, I haven't disappeared...

My apologies for not posting at all for the past five weeks or so... I basically took an unintentional sabattical over the holidays. After a whirlwind, busy summer, a month-long illness, and many family obligations in preparation for the holidays (and not having anything of value to post, admittedly) I just haven't had the urge to blog - until now.

It's a new year, and there's lots to look forward to. Except for a joint article with Eric Wittenberg that is in the new issue of Blue&Gray Magazine, I really haven't written anything of substance since the summer. (The B&G article came out really nice, by the way - it's based on the July 4, 1863 Monterey Pass battle chapter from our book One Continuous Fight, and publisher Dave Roth did a great job with the new maps.) I did a narrative piece on the actions of Gettysburg's South Cavalry Field for the No Casino Gettysburg and No Casino Adams County folks that is seeing a lot of public exposure right now (in opposition to the damned proposed casino along Rt. 30 only 2700 feet south of the Park boundary).

But there is a lot to report on the The Complete Gettysburg Guide front. We had to keep it quiet until this week, but all five of the major book clubs - including the History Book Club and the Military Book Club - picked up the book as a selection! It is quite an honor for Steve Stanley and I. Anyone considering purchasing the book through the club needs to know that the quality of the club edition is the SAME high quality as the regular prints - the clubs "piggy-backed" on the print run by publisher Savas Beatie. Very same book. Same heavy gloss paper, same cover boards, same cover, same everything.

During the holiday, I began serious work on the script for the audio supplement for the Guide. This audio, which will be available as a CD package, and an internet download, will feature my voice narrative of the battlefield tours from the Guide - and will include an additional tour not in the book. The additional tour is that of the June 23, 1863 civilian ambush of a company of the 14th Virginia Cavalry that took place in the Cashtown Pass. During the ambush, a Cashtown civilian named Henry Hahn shot and mortally wounded a member of the 14th. There has never been a detailed tour published of the incident, and to my knowledge it has never been mapped. The supplement will contain that map. Please note, also, that this audio guide will NOT simply be a reading of the book - it will be completely different, and will point out many sights, places and events that do not appear in the book, and will leave out some that are in the book - in other words they are quite different indeed. We hope folks will see the value in both and will desire both. If all goes well, the audio guide is scheduled to be available to the public sometime this coming April.

We are very humbled by the wonderful reviews that the book has received. Besides the great print reviews, as of this date there are 28 reviews on Amazon, all of them 5-star. We can't express out gratitude for that adequately, and we are so heartened that folks enjoy and learn from the book so much! And even though the book has just been made available by the book clubs, as of last night when I checked their website, the Guide was already the #7 top-selling volume on the History Book Club's Civil War Campaigns list.

Although I haven't written much over the past several months, I have been actively gathering primary materials in preparation for beginning to write the next volume in the Guide series - the one for the 1862 Maryland Campaign. I expect to start cracking on the text later this month. Release date for it is expected to spring 2011, which give Steve and I the bulk of this year to put it together. Many Antietam/Maryland Campaign students and experts - Ted Alexander (who will write the Forward), Steve Recker, John Hoptak, Mannie Gentile, and Brian Jordan, just to name a few and leave many out - have signed on to help. I have always loved the campaign - South Mountain, Harpers Ferry, Antietam, Shepherdstown - every bit as much as Gettysburg, and I can't wait to get started.

Also during the year, I will begin work on a solo scholarly book that I've been wanting to do for a long time. It's a book I feel has been needed for a long time, and I've spent much of my research time over the past couple of decades gathering material needed for it. That's all I'll say for now, and more will be forthcoming on it next year.

Well, that's all I've got to say for now. Western Pennsylvania is in the midst of another big snow storm right now, which I'm watching out the windows of my new home office/library. Snowblowing and shoveling cuts into my writing time! But winter, I have found, is a great time to write - hot chocolate at the ready, dog snuggled up at my feet.

Let the words flow... and try to grab the good ones.