Dead Men

I am often accused of preferring dead men to those still living. It may be true. In this season when the veil between the living and the dead is rent in so many places, I especially think of our ghosts. I offer this poem:

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Happy Anniversary & BOO!

It’s that time of year again, and it is my ECW Anniversary. A little over a year ago I found Emerging Civil War on line. I noticed they didn’t have much (nothing!) about Elmer Ellsworth, so I mentioned that I had “stuff.” Chris and Kris jumped right on it, asking me to submit a piece […]

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Telling History vs. Making Art: Killer Angels, real and fictional

Part five in a series. In my last post, I began to discuss Michael Shaara’s aesthetic choices for constructing The Killer Angels as he did, and how he adopted a Lost Cause-interpretation of Robert E. Lee as a central choice for his novel. Where Shaara deviates significantly from Lost Cause tradition, though, is his choice […]

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Question of the Week #6

“Which Confederate cavalry commander was more effective during the war, Jeb Stuart of Nathan Bedford Forrest?”

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Telling History vs. Making Art: Gods & Jacksons

Part four in a series. One of my favorite places to work at FSNMP is the Stonewall Jackson Shrine, the small plantation office building where the Confederate general died. It’s a story I love so much that I wrote a book about it, The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson. But no book gives the story […]

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Blood in front of the Angle

The swale in front of the Bloody Angle Spotsylvania Court House Battlefield Sunday, October 21, 2012

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Telling History vs. Making Art: “Frankly, my dear….”

Part three in a series As the horn section carries Max Steiner’s score from its overture into the sweeping, now-iconic strings of its main theme, Gone With the Wind opens with haggard-looking slaves returning from a hard day’s work set against the first of many sunset backdrops. On-screen text immediately evokes a romanticized antebellum past: […]

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Question of the Week #5

“Which Valley Campaign had a larger impact on the war in the east, the 1862 Valley Campaign or the 1864 Valley Campaign?”

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Brock Road Sunrise

Sunrise along the Brock Road Sunday, October 21, 2012

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