10,000 Posts: Sean Michael Chick Dips into the ECW Archives

Favorites by others:

Recruiting the Regiment: The 11th New York Fire Zouaves by Meg Groeling, posted June 30, 2021. A great post, well researched with lots of images. Meg’s passion for the topic is obvious.

On the March to Sailor’s Creek with Tucker’s Naval Battalion by Neil Chatelain, posted on April 6, 2022. Very well-written blog on an obscure topic, which is really what I love about ECW.

Things I Learned on the Way to Atlanta: What Happened at Cassville? by Dave Powell, posted on February 8, 2023. This is Powell at his best (and best read along with “Things I Learned on the Way to Atlanta: A Missed Opportunity“). I was excited to see a well-worn Civil War military counterfactual get overturned in clear prose and with a good use of maps, too.

It’s tough to say what my favorite posts are that I’ve written. Some blog posts I still feel drawn to, and others I am only reminded I ever wrote them if I look through my contributions. There are two kinds of posts I write essentially. Those expressing my melancholy and cynical take on the war and relating it more broadly to humanity’s darker nature. The other I write to discuss purely military matters, such as Benjamin Prentiss and Everett Peabody on the eve of Shiloh. However, I write about military matters in books—the more introspective and pessimistic stuff I know will never get printed, so ECW is where I can publish it in some form (in no small part because it is unpopular). Humanity always needs to lie to itself to make mass slaughter palatable. It will never change. Perhaps it is necessary, to avoid the general demoralization that often proceeds catastrophe as often as hubris. But I will never go along with it. For those who dislike such cynicism, I point you to what my personal hero Ambrose Bierce wrote: ” A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic’s eyes to improve his vision.” This cynic is happy that I can on occasion post such thoughts on ECW. And of course I am very happy the blog has been such a success.

Here are my two favorites:

Civil War & Pop Culture: “Like I said, the War was Rough Through Here.” Thoughts on the film Pharaoh’s Army, posted on January 22, 2020.

Micaela Almonester, Andrew Jackson, and Myths, posted on February 1, 2023.

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NOTE: Click here for a full archive of Sean Michael Chick’s posts.