Change in seasons

Here in Western PA (West Pennsyltucky for my friend Rick Allen of Maryland), we are blessed with all four seasons. Sometimes in the extreme - summers can be mild or hot as hell. Winters can be mild, or we can have -22 degree nights and snow measured in feet. Fall, however, has always been my favorite.

Right around this time of year, the signs of autumn begin. The leaves are just starting to change, and soon will be in their full painted-canvas glory... to be enjoyed for a couple weeks if a huge windstorm doesn't blow them down. Folks from other parts, in fact, drive here to western or central PA to view the leaves on the mountains.

The nights cool off after still-warm days. Today, for instance, was sunny and about 76 degrees at its warmest. Tonite, however, will dip down to about 52 - wonderful sleeping weather. It's the time of year when you need to run neither the furnace or the air conditioning. The temp in the house is comfortable 24 hours a day. That nip in the air causes folks 'round these parts to look into the sky as if reading some type of annual sign, and say, "Hhmm. Football weather." I think that phrase is passed down through generations like a favorite recipe.

And the smells - you can smell those leaves. If I went into a coma for 20 years, and was blind when I woke up, all I'd have to do is smell the outside air here and I'd know it was sometime from mid-September to mid-October. No doubt. Some folks are also beginning to burn their fireplaces and woodburners at night - meaning you can smell that wonderful, sweet aroma. I caught it when I took the garbage out tonite. One of the many Amish families that live all around me must be burning wood tonite.

Fall is also marked, for me, by the shift in my household chores. Over the past few days, I tore down my 1500-sq. ft. garden, always a sign for me that the end of summer is near. The tomato plants were dead and over, and so was everything else except the pepper and cabbage plants. The cabbage is about ready to pick, and I'll be harvesting peppers for another week or two. The garden, which was a sign of growing life and expectations of harvest several months back, is now a mostly-empty patch that soon will be covered with snow. My mom, who passed away this past February, loved the cucumbers and tomatoes that I grew. This was the first growing season without her, and every time I worked the cukes, picked one, or enjoyed one in a salad, reminded me of her. Simple things like the garden kept her memory alive for me, just like so many foods and other familiar things remind me of family and friends past.

I also started moving and stacking the firewood this afternoon. I buy hardwood by the tractor-trailer load and throughout the summer cut it and split it. It's great exercise, and a terrific way to heat the house in winter. We have a modern woodburner built right into the electric furnace, and we burn wood as much as possible. Excepting the cost and time that we put into the wood, we are able to heat our 2-story 4200-sq. ft. home for about $30 a month, on average and even during the coldest months. I figure - why give the money to the electric company - and as I said it's great exercise getting it ready. My dad and I cut and split wood for his fireplace and woodburner when I was a kid, so it's an activity I've long enjoyed. And considering the Cap and Tax the cretins in Congress are instituting - doubling and tripling electric rates because of a "global warming" that doesn't exist except in the inexplicable mind of Al Gore - it'll save even more money. More money to put into Civil War research!

I was raised very Italian, and in my family all the men cook. Today, I do most of the cooking and always have. My dishes always change when autumn rolls around. This week I made my homemade chili, always a winter favorite. Another is cabbage and ham stew, and several other dishes made usually only during the cooler weather.

And this is also the time of year I start digging into whatever will be the next book. I enjoy writing over the winter months, and it fits well with the summer marketing season. If I can finish a book by January or so, then it's on schedule for editing, etc. for a spring release. I wrote most of the text of The Complete Gettysburg Guide in front of the fireplace in our living room - fire blazing, wood crackling and popping, one of my wife's crocheted blankets over my lap on which I rested the laptop. Our little dacshund Buddy curled up on my stomach. Steve Stanley and I have begun work on our next one - a guide to the 1862 Maryland Campaign - and I'm sure I'll work on it mostly in front of the fire. I had actually planned to begin early, this past August, but my nearly month-long illness precluded that. Concurrently, I'm also working on the script for the audio tour that will compliment the Gettysburg guide.

Soon, the snow will begin flying. I hate it by the time January/February rolls around, but that first snowflake we usually see around here in late October or early November evokes admiration from most folks. Hey, it snowed last night. Winter's comin'. Wonder how bad it'll be? Well, they say a bad winter this time. Or - They say a mild one this year. I don't know who the hell "they" are, but those folks seem to have an opinion about everything, don't they?

Next spring, the process starts all over again. The air will warm and the sun will get higher even while there's still snow patches on the ground. I'll start tilling the garden, eager to get the tomato and cucumber plants in. I'll think of Mom and how she loved them. I'll start wearing short-sleeved shirts even while the temperature is still in the 50's, just to let Ol Man Winter know he's not welcome anymore. And a whole new season of visiting Gettysburg and other historical sites, talking to folks about this passion, and perhaps anticipating the release of another book will all be just around the corner.

That reminds me, time to get back to writing. C'mon, Buddy, time for us to hop in the easy chair in front of the fireplace. I'm not building a fire tonite - not yet - but I'm sure he'll understand.

Steve Stanley on Civil War Talk Radio

If you didn't get to hear it live today, master cartographer/photographer Steve Stanley was the guest on Civil War Talk Radio this afternoon. In addition to the discussion about our new book, I know you'll enjoy hearing Steve talk about his early interest in history and mapmaking, how he develops his maps, and his thoughts about battlefields and preservation. Most folks know Steve by the beautiful maps he produces for the Civil War Preservation Trust, and now through the interview you'll be introduced to much more! Click on the link above (you should be able to listen to the show by clicking the player in the middle of the screen, and soon the show will be archived by date).

Great job, Steve, and congratulations!

PCN-TV Interview about "The Complete Gettysburg Guide"

Yesterday (Wednesday) I traveled to our capitol, Harrisburg Pa, to the studios of PCN-TV to tape an hour-long interview for the channel's "PA Books." I was a bit nervous going into it, since it was my first on-camera interview, but host Brian Lockman (left) made me feel very much at ease and was very easy to talk to. It was a great time! It was a very conversational interview, which made it fun. Brian told me that he really enjoyed The Complete Gettysburg Guide, and knew it very well. His questions about it, however, were very well done - instead of simply asking me about this or that in the book, he asked more general questions about Gettysburg, which allowed me to connect the topics with the book however I wished. I thought that was a really terrific way to do it. Instead of just a fact-by-fact accounting of what is in the book, we were able to have more of a conversation about its contents, the tours, the battlefield and town, and the battle's impact on history and its participants.

The taping that we did will be edited to one hour. For a little behind-the-scenes, one thing you probably won't see (hopefully!) is when I deftly dumped nearly the entire contents of my coffee mug into my lap during the interview! Brian needed to take a break at one point for a drink, and I decided to do the same - accidentally spilling the water on my pants. We had a good laugh over it, and I thought that maybe they should just leave it in the final airing - folks who know me well would just figure "that's J.D." :)

The interview is scheduled to air on October 25 at 9:00 pm. Here is a link to the PA Books section of PCN-TV's website (scroll down through the window on the left side of the page to see the section for the book). Over 3,000,000 households in Pennsylvania receive PCN, and it will also be available as a podcast on their website so anyone can see it. I'll provide more information when I have it.

"Complete Gettysburg Guide" audio companion update

A wonderful review of the book appears in the November 2009 issue of America's Civil War magazine, in subscriber's hands and on newsstands now. I repeat it here, but also importantly for the last paragraph of Robin Friedman's review:

Casual visitors to Gettysburg usually do just fine following the National Park Service's auto tour map to get their fill of the historic battlefield. But if you really want to explore the sites and events surrounding the epic three-day battle, this comprehensive new guide by Civil War historian J. David Petruzzi and accomplished cartographer/photographer Steven Stanley is a welcome and
invaluable resource.

The guide's subtitle - Walking and Driving Tours of the Battlefield, Town, Cemeteries and Other Topics of Historical Interest - tells you all you need about the authors' goal here. Petruzzi and Stanley have developed 11 separate tours of the battle in stunning, colorful detail. The first is a tour of the June 26 Marsh Creek skirmish between Confederate cavalry and Pennsylvania militia and the final two examine the battlefield's beautiful rock carvings and its outlying field hospital sites.

Published on high quality, glossy paper, the 320-page hardcover book is both durable and easy to hold as you follow the tours. Directions for each tour's sites are provided in meticulous detail, and Stanley's maps and photographs are first-rate.

Petruzzi opens the guide with an extensive overview of the Gettysburg Campaign and then the Marsh Creek skirmish tour. The first day of the main battle often gets bypassed in favor of the fighting on July 2 and 3, but the authors want to make clear that what happened on July 1 is critical to comprehending the battle as a whole. Petruzzi and Stanley provide 12 specific stops on this tour, including the often-overlooked memorial three miles west of town marking the conflict's opening shots.

The tour for the July 2-3 fighting comes in a single chapter, with the action arranged by location rather than chronologically. This approach allows the reader to see the interrelationships between the fighting on those days. Thus, the tour begins with the Confederate position on Seminary ridge and covers the Southern penetration of the Union center late on July 2, almost at the same point it attained briefly during Pickett's Charge.

Other tours cover the little-known but significant fighting at Brinkerhoff's Ridge on July 2, as well as the July 3 battle between J.E.B. Stuart and David Gregg at East Cavalry Field. Separate tours cover the obscure July 2 cavalry clash at Hunterstown and the July 3 engagement at Fairfield, a loss for the Union mounted arm.

The authors give the Evergreen and Soldiers' National cemeteries deserved attention but should have looked further at the African-American presence during the battle. The town's small Lincoln Cemetery, a historic burial ground for African Americans, offers
eloquent testimony to the Civil War and is worth a visit.

Thank you, Robin, for such a great review of the book. As to your final point, I had actually considered trying to work in a tour of the Lincoln Cemetery (one I have visited many, many times and as recently as this past July), along with visits to Cashtown and the pass, Black's Cemetery, the battle at Hanover, etc. However, space was the consideration. If you look carefully at the book, you'll see that our publisher Ted Savas at Savas-Beatie chose the much higher quality (and expensive) sewn binding of the heavy, gloss paper - rather than the common glued binding. Note that many sections of dozens of pages, each sewn together and then bound together to produce the book, make up the whole. Logistically, with this type of production, you can't just add, say, 3 or 4 more pages. You'd have to add dozens. That's why we had to make the decision to include what we did. Another sewn section in the book would have added perhaps $5 or $10 more to the price... knocking out a huge segment of the buying public. The book retails for only $39.95 ( less than many black-and-white hardcovers today) and less than $30 on online sellers like Amazon. A bigger book would retail closer to $50, and no one would buy it.

When we began the book, we were given the 320-page limit by Ted (all with an eye toward desired production costs of the book driving the affordable retail price), meaning that once all the text, maps, and photos were produced and chosen, Steve had to lay it all out to see how it would fit. Also, notice that the opening of each tour chapter features a photograph that "bleeds" over a facing two-page spread, which is how we wanted each chapter to begin. This, then, is another factor that dictates how, and on what page, each preceding chapter must end - further dictating the page count of each tour chapter. Obviously, we knew how many of Steve's maps had to be in the book - we were not going to short-change those, period. Depending on their size, they all take up a certain amount of space. Of course, you also have to calculate in the front and back matter, bibliography, and index. (Now do you see why Steve, in the Introduction, tells what a long, tedious process it was to design the book? :) We had originally chosen to include a tour of Hanover, but it just wouldn't fit. At the end, we also had to remove several photos that Steve had planned, and wanted, to include, but it was either remove them or remove text. It was a long process of choosing what could be included (based on necessity and desire) and what had to go.

In the end, then, the desire to include "one more tour" of, for example, the Lincoln Cemetery, or Cashtown, or whatever, would have driven us to add an entire section of many more pages, driving up the price of the book and making it much less affordable to a wide variety of folks. So it was a question of adding all those 4 or 5 other tours - or none of them. Not one or two. This type of question has come up since the book's release ("Why not add this, it would have taken only a couple pages....?") and folks understand the logistics of book production when I explain this to them.

However, it allows us to... include these sites in the audio tour! The audio tour will compliment (not replace) the book. So there will be tours, sites, and events in the audio tour not in the book, and vice versa. The audio tour will not be a simple reading of the book text, and in fact the two will be quite different, giving the visitor a much fuller, broader experience when they have both (a must!). Steve and I have many, many different sites and events planned for inclusion in the audio tour, and if anyone has any suggestions please do let me know - we'd be interested and grateful for all ideas.

So that's the answer to why this or that didn't make the book - but is very likely to be in the audio companion. Stay tuned.

"Plenty of Blame To Go Around" makes Top 50 Civil War Books of All Time list

I was quite honored to learn today that Plenty of Blame To Go Around: Jeb Stuart's Controversial Ride to Gettysburg made the updated Old Baldy Civil War Roundtable (Philadelphia PA) list of the 50 Civil War Books of All Time. This book (my first, and co-authored with Eric Wittenberg) appeared in 2006 and came in at #50. We are in terrific company - classics by Foote, McPherson, Shaara, Sears, Frassanito, Catton, Warner, etc. headline the list.

To have your work thought of as important as these classics is humbling and gratifying. Thank you to those who formulate the list, to all those who have enjoyed the book, and everyone for thinking so highly of the work. It is appreciated beyond words!

Dimitri Rotov's review of The Complete Gettysburg Guide

We have been humbled by all the wonderful reviews that the book has been garnering. Over the past couple of months, I have been receiving emails from folks who have read it and used it on the field, and all the comments have been terrific. There are several bloggers who specialize in book reviews, and Dimitri Rotov is one that I (and everyone) respect very much. His reviews are always very insightful and detailed. Dimitri tells it like it is, and it's difficult to impress him - which is as it should be. I enjoy reading his entries every day.

Yesterday (September 2) Dimitri put up his review of The Guide. As expected, he goes into a great amount of detail. We couldn't be happier with the review, and once I read Dimitri's comments they - like so many others' -reinforced for me why we did this book. There is no better teacher of historical sites than to look at them for yourself, and study them on the spot. Thank you so much for the review, Dimitri, and I'm simply speechless. I spoke with Steve Stanley yesterday and he is one happy and humbled camper after reading it :)

On the "shingles" front (see previous post), I'm slowly healing. Once the pain is entirely gone, I think I'll be back to 100%. We're getting there!

My dance with shingles - and I ain't talking about my roof...

My apologies to my readers for not posting for a few weeks - I've gotten several calls and emails from folks wondering if I'm just "laying low" for the summer, or if I've gotten lost. Well, when August 1 came, I had intended to follow through with my plan to take the month off from researching and writing, and gets lots of stuff done at the house... including moving the entire library from the first floor to the second. I had intended to do those things, that is.

On the 1st, which was a Saturday, the better half and I took a ride to do some antiquing and visit yard sales, something we enjoy doing once in a while. Hey, yard sales can be great places to find books! After making our last stop, I noticed that I had a few blisters on the back of my head. I thought maybe it had something to do with the hot sun. We had the roof off the Vette and I thought perhaps I had gotten a little too many rays.

I didn't think any more of it - until I woke up Sunday morning. There were more blisters on the back of my head, my neck, and also my right cheek. Aw, *&%$#@, I thought... poison ivy? I was out back near the woods cutting grass on Saturday morning, and maybe I got into it somehow. During the day the blisters got progressively worse. I got some Poison Ivy Wash at the store, and hoped it would help.

By Monday morning the blistering got worse and began to hurt. And the pain wasn't just at the surface, it hurt deeper in the muscle. While at the office, I called my family doctor to get in to see her so we could do something about it. She was on vacation, and her partner was covering her patients. Unfortunately, though, I couldn't get in to see her until Tuesday afternoon. When she took a look, she diagnosed it as poison ivy, or oak, or whatever. The strange thing about it, which I told her, was that it wasn't itchy at all - but it was hurting like hell. She was convinced it was contact dermatitis, and prescribed a steroid cream to put on the rash. I left, picked up the prescription, and immediately started smearing the stuff all over rash.

By Thursday, though, it hadn't cleared up much. The blisters had turned from white to red, and they seemed to be spreading. On top of it all, I started to get dizzy. I called the doc's office about it, and she prescribed steroid pills to give me a stronger meds regimen. I was so dizzy I could barely walk, let alone drive, so my wife picked up the pills. I dutifully started taking them. I was out of the office both Thursday and Friday, mainly because of the dizziness.

Saturday was pretty bad by late afternoon. The dizziness got worse, and I lost my appetite. All I could do was lie in bed. If I got up, which was rare, I had to hold onto things or I'd fall down. I was getting pretty naseous, and the fact that I couldn't eat was turning my stomach into knots. Sunday was no better. I was hoping that whatever reaction I was having would begin clearing by Monday.

Fat chance. On Monday I was dizzy as ever, and the blisters turned into ugly scabs. I still wasn't eating, and by then I'd lost about 12 pounds. (I'm 6'1" and 180, so I'm not wide to begin with.) Knowing that things were a lot more serious than just a case of poison ivy, I told my wife to run me to the Emergency Room that night.

We got to the ER about 9:30 pm. I told the admitting nurse that I thought maybe I was having a reaction to the steroid pills, which can make one dizzy and naseous. But in my case it was pretty bad, and after 3 days of it I couldn't take it anymore. Plus I wasn't eating and I was getting dehydrated. I hobbled back to the exam room. After my vitals were checked out, in walked one of the ER physicians.

It only took about a 10-second examination for him to shake his head and declare it was shingles. Shingles? What the - ? And a pretty bad case, too. Because we were treating poison ivy, it was shingles that had gone untreated for about 10 days. The blistering had gotten infected (hence the redness) and to top it off, I was dizzy as hell because it had given me an inner ear infection. It was so far advanced that it was too late to give me the shot they normally give in the early stages of shingles. A second doctor came in at the request of the first, and he too recognized it as shingles. Both shook their head when they learned another doctor had misdiagnosed it, and everyone felt bad that I had suffered this long. It was virtually untreated, and to add to my misery, I couldn't eat, was dehydrated, had a sore neck and shoulder from sleeping in a weird position (when I could sleep at all), and the ear infection completely debilitated me.

I was given and prescribed a powerful antibiotic which would knock out the shingles and the infection. I would take 2,000 milligrams per day for the next 10 days, and all I could basically do was ride out the storm. I was told I'd have a pretty rotten couple of weeks ahead of me.

And rotten they were. I could only spend the next 3 days in bed. But thankfully, the infection(s) subsided, and the dizziness finally went away over the past weekend. By Saturday my appetite returned, and I ate everything in sight. Karen spent about $200 at the grocery store, and I ate it all and then some. I've actually gained all of the weight back already. The blistering and rash are nearly gone, but the worry now is that there may be some scarring (although not too bad) because it became so advanced. I saw the chiropractor, who put my neck back into position on Tuesday. My neck was out for two weeks, and the muscles were completely wrecked. That's starting to heal now. Because of everything, I had so much pain in the head/neck area for nearly two weeks it's hard to describe.

The docs told me that shingles is basically an adult form of chicken pox. If you had it when you were a kid, you're at risk for another breakout later on, because the virus lies dormant in you for 20, 30, even 50 or more years. Neither I nor my father can remember me having it, though. Thankfully, there is a shot that is given to prevent another breakout, or will make it less severe. Once I'm completely healed, I'll probably get it. I've since learned that my sister had it some time ago too. What has really scared me is that if left completely untreated, it could have caused deafness in my right ear. If it gets into your eye, for instance, you can go blind.

I got back into the office on Monday, and I'm pretty much back to normal. There's some numbness, though, in my neck and cheek, and I'm hoping there's little or no scarring. If there are any lasting effects, however, that first doctor is getting a call - from my attorney. She called me at home the day after I was at the ER (she got a report from them) and I'm sure she was fishing around to see what my attitude was. I let her know that at this point, it's a matter of time to see if I fully recover.

I realize that there are much worse health maladies to go through, but this one was pretty awful. Getting a misdiagnosis meant that a pretty bad illness turned into a horrible one. I had nearly three weeks of abject hell, and I'll never forget August 2009.

Now it's time to get out the hammer and tools, and get to work on that library. Let's see, I wonder how long it will take to carry about 4000 books upstairs... 8 or 10 at a time...

Amazon/Barnes & Noble reviews

We really need more online reviews of The Complete Gettysburg Guide on Amazon.com and BN.com... everyone who can put up a new review of the book beginning today (July 28), please email me at jdpetruzzi@live.com, and we will tell you about a special offer we and our publisher have for you. Clicking on the links above will take you to the book's pages on those sites. Please place your review on the sites, then email me for details. Thank you!

"The Complete Gettysburg Guide" digital companion

After a couple weeks of finally "gittin' stuff done" around the house and catching up on lots of things, I have been talking with Steve Stanley about our upcoming projects. We're just now starting on what will be a digital companion to "The Complete Gettysburg Guide." We will have a downloadable and CD touring companion to the book that folks can take along and play in their vehicle and/or personal devices. In addition to including Steve's maps, the companion will complement and supplement the book with additional places to see and events to tour on the battlefield, in the town, and other places. Audio tours are extremely popular with folks, and many, many people have asked if/when we'll be doing an audio companion for the book.

This weekend I will begin writing the script, and Steve is starting to work on the package itself and the maps. If anyone has any suggestions, please pass them along to me. I will continually keep you posted here as to our progress!

Back from Gettysburg

Wow, it was a whirlwind four days in Gettysburg from July 1 to 4. Steve Stanley, Mike Nugent and I had a busy time doing book signings almost constantly, but it was a lot of fun. It was really great seeing Mike, whom I hadn't seen since last summer.


The reception of The Complete Gettysburg Guide has been beyond our expectations, and we are truly humbled and grateful. Everyone has given us such wonderful comments about it, and we especially love hearing from those that have taken it out on the field and used it. But my buddy Steve Basic made the most poignant observation of all, and one I couldn't agree with more: if someone gives this book to, say, a ten year-old, and it sparks his interest in Gettysburg and history in general, then all the hard work was more than worth it.


Over the four days, we had a lot of book signings and talks at wonderful Gettysburg stores such as The American History Store, the Gettysburg Museum and Gift Center, Gallery 30, the Supply Wagon Sutler, as well as at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center. We also attended the Hunterstown Heritage Days over the anniversary of the cavalry fight there, on July 2.


On July 3, it was a special treat to speak in front of a large crowd under the Sacred Trust tent outside the GNMP Visitor Center. During our second book signing inside the VC that day, we were able to meet filmaker Ken Burns, who was signing his books beside us. Below is a pic of Ken, Steve Stanley, me, and Mike Nugent during a short break.

At Hunterstown, I spoke to the attendees about the book and also the preservation efforts going on at Hunterstown. Below is a shot of the talk. Laurie and Roger Harding are true gems as the coordinators of the Hunterstown Historical Society, and it was great seeing the dedication of the new Civil War Trails wayside on their historical property, the Tate farm.



Below is a shot of Steve and I flanking wonderful Custer living historian, Steve Alexander, at the Hunterstown event as he holds his copy of the book.





Here is a pic of me giving my talk during the Sacred Trust (Gettysburg Foundation) event in the tent outside the GNMP Visitor Center on July 3. We had a packed tent, and I got lots of great questions about the book. I think we signed about 40 copies of the book for folks, and we really enjoyed talking to people about the tours and places to see that are included.


Charles Joyce is simply one amazing artist. When you visit Gallery 30 at 30 York Street in Gettysburg, check out his work. During our signing there on July 4, Chuck was having an exhibition of some of his work at the gallery, and I had to have my photo taken with him in front of some of his paintings. He is below on the left.

I'm very glad to be back home after this, my fourth trip this year to Gettysburg. But I can look back on many days of talking to many amazing folks about the book. Now it's time to take time to get some things done around the house! (Oh, and get back to my real job, too!)