Category Archives: miscellaneous

Coming Up For Air

13 Friday Jan 2012

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No, I haven’t been lost in the wilderness with no access to the internet. No, I haven’t given up my pursuit of the Civil war and all things cavalry. I’ve simply been learning a ton of things in the process of preparing my first manuscript for publishing which will make a wonderful series of posts AFTER it is delivered by the 31st of this month.

But I’m back. Mostly. As times permits between now and the end of the month, then “full time” once again.

So what’s been happening while I was gone?

Retiring. Again. Finished up my retiree recall with the Army on Tuesday, with all of the administrative joy and loss of productive time that one might suspect. It was an amazing ride, and I’m truly grateful to all of those who helped along the way.

Finishing the manuscript. One teaser from the upcoming Getting Published series of posts – plan for success. We were incredibly fortunate to have our (my partner, Jim Jones and I, there’s no royal plural here) first query accepted by a publisher instead of searching for months for an interested publisher. An acceptance letter and one complete chapter leave you a LONG way to go in the process. Enough said.

Maps. We have not one, not two, but 14 maps for the book, by two very talented cartographers. After the much-lamented Blake Magner’s passing, Steven Stanley was kind enough to step in on very short notice and provide the maps for the Beverly Ford and Brandy Station chapters.

Back soon, manuscript to finish, syllabi for spring semester to post….

Of Poems and Roundtables

30 Wednesday Mar 2011

Posted by in civil war roundtables, miscellaneous, poetry

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Poetry isn’t a usual feature on this blog, but I recently unearthed this poem by Joseph Mills Hanson and thought it was worth sharing. It was in the Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States, Vol. 49, July-August 1911, page 142. It was originally published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, date unknown.

The Cavalry Veteran

This sabre-cut on my forehead scored?
I picked it up at Beverly Ford
The day we turned “Jeb” Stuart’s flank
And hurled him from the river bank.
It was parry and thrust with a hearty will
As we fought for the guns on Fleetwood Hill,
While over the fields and through the pines
Backward and forward surged the lines;
Twelve thousand men in a frenzied fray;
Charge and rally and mad melee —
Oh, the crash and roar as the squadrons met,
The cheers and yells — I can hear them yet!
But we’d forced the fords, so our work was done,
And we galloped away ere set of sun.

This welt of a bullet across my arm?
It’s a scratch I caught at McPherson’s farm
That morning our outposts chanced to strike
Hill’s solid corps on the Cashtown pike.
Hour by hour or thin ranks stood
Stubbornly holding each fence and wood,
Till, down the road where the wheat-fields grew
And the spires of Gettysburg pierced the blue,
WE saw a column of dust arise,
A welcome sight to our anxious eyes,
And into the hell of the battle’s roar
Reynolds marched with the old First Corps;
But the field where the rebel flood was stayed
Was held by the stand that Buford made.

This limp I got as my horse went down
When Fitz Lee ran us through Buckland town.
Out of the woods with a spurt of flame,
Driving backward our van, he came.
Custer struggled to turn the thrust,
But they whirled him off like a fleck of dust;
Davies, shattered in front and flanks,
Took to the fields with flying ranks,
And off we scampered, like boys at play,
Over the hills and far away.
Crack! A shot through my good steed’s knee;
Down he tumbled on top of me,
And I crawled to a thicket, right glad to lie
Till the jubilant rebels had thundered by.

This scar on my neck was a bayonet blow
From a stalwart Johnnie sat Waynesboro,
Where we routed Early from hill to hill
And tossed him over to Charlottesville,
Clearing the valley, all seamed and scored
By waste and pillage and fire and sword,
Down we galloped like Attila’s Huns,
Capturing trenches and flags and guns,
Bagging the foe ere the fight began.
(That was a habit with Sheridan!)
I seized a flag, but the color guard
Passed my parry and thrust me hard —
Though we made it up and were friends for aye
When I shared my rations with him next day!

As often happens, this thread led somewhere unexpected. Reading the poem, it sounds as though the rider was a veteran of Buford’s 1st Cavalry Division of the Army of the Potomac, most likely a volunteer from either the 1st or 2nd Brigade. A quick check of the NPS Soldiers & Sailors database didn’t turn up a cavalryman by that name, so I did a generic internet search.

Here’s what I turned up in a biography on a South Dakota State Historical Society website (look here for the remainder of the biographical sketch)

“In later years, deriving from his enthusiasm and expertise in military history, especially Civil War history, the National Park Service hired Joseph as Historical Assistant. He compiled maps for battles at Petersburg, Antietam, Kennesaw Mountain, and Richmond. He had a short stint as archeologist at Jamestown, from which he believed himself unqualified. His final assignment with the National Park Service placed him as first superintendent of the newly established Manassas Battlefield Park in Virginia where he was instrumental in researching, mapping and designating historical signage and landmarks throughout the park.

“In 1935, Joseph, along with 3 other Civil War enthusiasts from Manassas formed a group calling themselves the Battlefield Crackpates. In 1952, the group formally organized and expanded into the Civil War Roundtable of Washington D.C. Joseph was one of 18 as a founding member. The Roundtable promotes the preservation of Civil War historical fields and landmarks. Joseph and the members of the Roundtable actively lobbied and successfully prevented the federal government from building part of the interstate highway through the Manassas Battlefield. In 1957, Joseph received the Roundtable’s Gold Medal Award for distinguished achievement in Civil War history. One of the original Crackpates, artist Garnet Jex, painted Joseph’s portrait for the National Park Service at the Manassas Battlefield Park. In 1953, Joseph’s last book, Bull Run Remembers, was published, compiled from his extensive research for the Manassas Battlefield Park. Joseph retired from the National Park Service in December 1947 and lived with his second wife, Rosamond, in Manassas until his death on February 11, 1960. He is buried next to his parents in the Yankton Cemetery.”

I will refrain from nominating any new members for the Battlefield Crackpates.

From poetry to the birth of the Civil War Round Table in one brief entry. I hope you enjoyed the ride.

Civil War Cavalry Conference in VA This Weekend

25 Thursday Feb 2010

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I thought I had posted about this long since. As originally posted on Eric’s blog weeks ago, the 11th annual Civil War seminar at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia is this Saturday. The title of this year’s seminar is “The Cavalry: Weapons, Leaders, and Battles.” It is free of charge and open to the public.

The list of presenters is a veritable who’s who of experts. Robert Dunkerly, one of the rangers at Appomattox, will present on horsepower and firepower. Eric Wittenberg will present on Sheridan, and Jeffry Wert on Jeb Stuart. Bud Hall will present on Brandy Station, and Scott Patchan will present on cavalry operations in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864. Wittenberg, Patchan and Hall are all due for new books in the not too distant future, so we may see and hear some new material as well. It looks to be a fantastic conference.

Due to a very understanding boss and a great deal of overtime recently, I will actually be able to attend this one. I’m really looking forward to it, and hope to see some of you there.

Making Progress

20 Wednesday Jan 2010

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Yes, it’s a new year, and a great deal of progress is being made, not that one could tell from looking at this blog. My professional organizer wife has informed me that January is national “GO” month (GO= Get Organized), which given the disarray my historical files are in, seemed like an excellent deal. The bad news is that it feels like it’s taking forever. The good news is that I’m turning up all sorts of material that I’ve been meaning to post, so there should be a great deal of traffic here shortly.

The manuscript on the 6th Cavalry, where I spent most of my time over the holidays, continues to grow at an alarming rate. We should have the last few sources in place by the end of March, then the great whittling project begins to reduce it to something resembling publishing size. Unfortunately, Jim just left for New York to resume flying, so we’re down to mail and email collaboration, but we still hope to start querying publishers by the end of the summer.

We’re putting together a Little Big Horn staff ride at work, so I’ve been doing a good bit of background bio on some of the officers, nearly every one of which served in the Civil War, so it’s likely relevant odds and ends from that project will show up here as well.

No grand posting of topics for the new year, as that panned out rather dismally last year. My production was terrible, so most of those topics still need to be covered. I will simply say that this year I’ll do better.

Time Flies

27 Tuesday Oct 2009

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Wow! I had no idea it had been nearly three weeks since my last post. I will refrain from making any comments about being back in the saddle, since the post of the same name is still drawing daily comments from some Asian-language porn site.

I’m back, and finally willing and able to post again. The master’s degree is at long last complete, papers and classes complete, and attention can be turned to family and more enjoyable things than school. I still hope to complete a second master’s in history, but plan to take a few months in the interim to relax a bit.

My efforts to elicit commentary from anyone from or related to Norwich have been unsuccessful, so I suppose AMU wins that discussion by default….

Book draft two finally continues updates and editing. Several new sources popped up in the interim thanks to Dr. Rick Sauers, so more research is required. And I’m still working on a few things like the rest of the brief 3rd Cavalry history started before everything went awry a few months back. I’ve also been poking around a bit about Benjamin S. Roberts and William P. Sanders, and should have posts on them here in the near future. Not to mention the Kelly’s Ford blog I’ve so neglected in the interim.

I haven’t had a great deal of time for leisure reading, but am in the midst of two interesting books related to the war. The first is Jeffry Wert’s excellent Cavalryman of the Lost Cause (found on Amazon here), which will likely prove the definitive biography on Jeb Stuart for years to come. Indeed, it was an anecdote from this book that lead me back to studying Sanders. The second book is The War Department in 1861 – A Study in Mobilization and Administration by A. Howard Meneely. A reprint of a book originally published in 1928, this has been a very informative work. Meneely provides a very even-handed look at the War Department at the beginning of the war, maintaining an objective view of the people and the situation without jumping to conclusions to demonize or seek scapegoats.

More posts soon!

Short Takes

17 Thursday Sep 2009

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Some weeks are longer than others, apparently, as it’s been rather more than 7 days since my last post. At any rate….

Thank you very much to those who sent their condolences here and elsewhere on the passing of my mother. I took your thoughts and prayers to heart during this difficult time. There are a lot of great folks in the blogosphere, and it shows during difficult times.

What I’m reading: 1861: A Study in Unpreparedness (or something similar, I don’t have it in front of me). Very interesting, though I haven’t had much time to devote to it.

You wouldn’t think there would be a Civil War link to a small town in the far northwest of California, but I managed. Camp Lincoln was established on June 13, 1862 near Crescent City, California by Company G, 2nd Regiment, California Volunteers. It wasn’t intended to defend against Confederates, of course, but was established to protect settlers from Indians because all of the regulars had been sent east to fight in the Civil War. It was abandoned in 1869.

A Brief Hiatus

10 Wednesday Jun 2009

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Not that I’ve been posting more than once or twice a week anyway, but I have just been informed that I will be making an unscheduled trip starting this weekend and ending in late July that will leave me without internet access. Expect no further posts here until July 22nd.

Military History graduate degrees

22 Friday May 2009

Posted by in education, graduate issues, miscellaneous

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Now that my “work” master’s degree is at last finished, or at least in its finishing throes, I’ve decided to start looking for the program that I’ve really wanted to take for my own satisfaction. My goal has been a graduate degree in history since my time as an undergrad, but circumstances to date haven’t been compatible with pursuing such a degree. Since I’m not interested in relocating to pursue the degree and am curious about a degree in military history, I’m probably limited to an online or distance learning program. That is probably not conducive to university teaching upon completion of the degree (or likely even acceptance to a PhD program, though I’m unsure exactly how that works) but that isn’t necessarily the goal I’m shooting for.

American Military University and Norwich University both offer programs for a Master of Arts in Military History. They may not be the most prominent programs, but certainly appear to be the most prevalent from their advertising. I thought I would see how the two programs compare head to head in several categories.

Accreditation.
Norwich: New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc.
AMU: Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education and Training Council.
Advantage: Even, given that I don’t know enough to gauge which is better.

Program of instruction.
Norwich: Six 11 week seminars (courses) of 6 credit hours each. Each semester consists of two seminars. Seminars include: Introduction to Military History, The Western Way of War, Military Thought and Theory, The Non-Western Way of War, U.S. Military History or Race and Gender in Military History, and the capstone seminar. The seminars are structured in a required sequence, and there are no electives. Normal completion 18-24 months from enrollment date. Program culminates in 1 week residency and graduation ceremony at Norwich in June. Total: 36 hours.
AMU: 4 required core courses on historical research methods, historiography, studies in U.S. military history, and great military philosophers. Selection of one of five areas of concentration: American military history, American Revolution, Civil war, World War II, and War since 1945. Each concentration consists of five required courses and one elective. No residency requirement, but there is a (optional) graduation ceremony in Washington D.C. each summer. Total: 36 hours.
Advantage: Even, depends on a given student’s preference for depth or breadth of study.

Start times.
Norwich: 4 — March, June, September, or December.
AMU: monthly.
Advantage: AMU.

Flexibility of content.
Norwich: very little, with one choice between two classes during one semester. 6 mandatory seminars, taken in a required order.
AMU: choice of five concentration options. The concentration option most comparable to the Norwich degree is American Military History, which is comprised of five required classes and one elective. Required classes: American Revolution in Context, Civil War, World War II in Context, War Since 1945, and Great Military Leaders. Electives include classes on air power, land warfare throughout history, sea power, special topics and independent study.
Advantage: AMU.

Cost.
Norwich: $657 per hour, or $7884 per semester, plus semester technology fee of $475 and resource fee of $450. Fees include all books and materials. Total: $26,427.
AMU: $275 per hour, or $825 per course. No additional mandatory fees, but students purchase their own books and materials. Total: $9,900.
Advantage: AMU, though there will be those who argue that you get what you pay for.

Exit requirements.
Norwich: capstone paper, similar to a thesis, which is defended during residency.
AMU: two options: capstone seminar/ thesis or comprehensive exam.
Advantage: Even, with a slight edge to Norwich as I favor an in-person defense of the thesis.

X-factor:
Norwich: degree has no mention of online designation. Students receive “the official, traditional diploma of Norwich University.”
Advantage: Norwich, given remaining stigma attached to online degree programs.

Some categories were intentionally omitted, as I had no effective way to compare them, or didn’t think them relevant. Class size wasn’t available for both schools. Faculty comparisons would a very research-intensive study outside the scope of this comparison. This comparison is admittedly quantity slanted vs quality, as I have no data readily available to compare the two qualitatively. Other than, hopefully, commentary from readers familiar with one or both programs.

On the surface of my rather limited analysis, it would appear that AMU is the clear winner. But it’s hard to quantify education, and whether one would be able to progress academically from either of these programs, so hopefully someone will be willing to share their thoughts.