Tomorrow I will be signing books at the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago. The signing and interview, which takes place at 12 noon, is part of their highly successful Virtual Book Signing series. You can watch the program live online, order a signed copy of my book, Remembering the Battle of the Crater: War [...]
Crater
Thanks to fellow historian, high school teacher, and blogger Jim Cullen for taking the time to write a review of my Crater book for the History News Network. Jim’s critique is thoughtful and raises some important questions about my interpretation. I especially appreciate the following: One also wonders about the next turn of the wheel. [...]
I am making my way through the new collection of postwar accounts that George Bernard likely intended to be a follow-up volume to his War Talks of Confederate Veterans (1892). Bernard served in the 12th Virginia, was present at the Crater, and remained very active in the A.P. Hill Camp, Confederate Veterans. War Talks is [...]
Following an exhausting seven hour drive from Gettysburg I returned home to find my author copies waiting at the door. I actually saw the book for the first time at CWI, where I was able to sign a number of copies for some of the participants and close friends. It made the entire trip that [...]
The book should be available in a matter of a few weeks, but you can now read the entire first chapter and snippets of the rest at Google Books. The first chapter focuses on the battle itself and pays specific attention to how Confederates assessed having to fight black soldiers. Other blogger/authors have expressed their [...]
File this one under the ‘better late than never’ category. I guess every historian has experienced uncovering a gem of a reference that failed to make it into a published work. The following editorial (“Our Colored Militia”) was published in the Petersburg Lancet on September 12, 1885 by George F. Bragg, Jr. on the occasion [...]
And here is the final comment from yesterday’s SHPG thread: A few months ago, I saw on the History Channel some stories of earlier armies, who killed every standing soldier left in the battle. The Black Flag became a Flag – Understood by Pirates and Armies, that there would be “No Survivors” left standing – [...]
We are so close I can smell it. The other day I had a chance to review the content of the dust jacket, which included the blurbs below. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have these endorsements. I seem to remember at one point speculating as to whether blurbs were simply favors [...]






