There seem to be a couple of these going around right now. While I have no particular ax to grind, I will take the opportunity to highlight some of the blogs I enjoy on a regular basis. All of these can be found in the blogroll to the left, so I won’t duplicate links inside the entry. I found it difficult to rank order these blogs, as I seem to turn to different ones at different times depending on the mood I’m in or what I’m looking for.

1. My Year of Living Rangerously – Manny Gentile
2. Bull Runnings – Harry Smeltzer
3. Rantings of a Civil War Historian – Eric Wittenberg
4. Civil War Books and Authors – Drew Wagenhofer
5. Civil Warriors – Mark Grimsley, Brooks Simpson and Ethan Rafuse
6. A Publisher’s Perspective – Ted Savas
7. TOCWOC – Brett Schulte, et al
8. Civil War Bookshelf – Dmitri Rotov
9. 48th Pennsylvania Infantry – John Hoptak
10. Hoofbeats and Cold Steel – JD Petruzzi

Honorable mention to Behind Antietam on the Web by Brian Downey, which missed a spot only because of a very infrequent posting schedule. Such postings, however, are invariably worth the wait.

In looking back at my list, I notice that several of them post off-topic frequently. Perhaps that was a subcoscious criteria, but if so, then I really did Rene Tyree over at Wig Wags an injustice….

If you haven’t already perused the June 2009 edition of Civil War Times, I heartily encourage you to do so. The magazine continues to improve with every issue. I’m not too interested in McClellan, so the cover story wasn’t of too much interest to me, but I was delighted with the map on page 34.

David Fuller crafted an excellent two-page map featuring the majority of the Peninsula campaign, complete with a day by day chronology of the campaigns significant engagements. While it’s evident that the author isn’t a fan of McClellan, the detail is excellent, and the map is a very good quick reference guide to the campaign

Due to an extraordinarily hectic week, there will no new posts here until this weekend. I should finally be back to a normal posting pattern next week. Thank you for your patience.

Returning to the theme of the enlisted soldiers of a cavalry regiment, I thought I’d work my way down from the sergeant major and provide a description of the duties and responsibilities of the company sergeants in the words of one who filled the various positions during the war.

“The first sergeant out-ranked all other warrant officers of the company. Very many of the duties of the captain have by custom fallen to the sergeant to do. The captain is responsible but the first sergeant relieves him of a great many burdens, or rather of the performance of many duties. The first sergeant becomes a quite important person in a company and enjoys a great many privileges. The discipline of the company is largely his work.

“The next sergeant in rank in a cavalry company is the sergeant who looks after the provisions or rations of food for the men and forage for the horses. he drills with the company at least until thoroughly instructed in the use of arms and in the prescribed movements for men and horses.

“The other four sergeants are ‘duty’ sergeants who serve with the company always in all of its duties. The sergeants usually have command of small working parties, and may have one or more corporals with them. The sergeants perform important parts in drills, and are very necessary under officers.”

“The corporals rank below sergeants, and take rank among themselves from first to eighth.”

“Often a sergeant or corporal may be such only in name, not having received an appointment. this is often done to reward a specially good enlisted man when there is no vacancy to be filled, or when the captain may wish to more fully acquaint himself with a soldiers (sic) capacity before finally determining to appoint him to the position.”

Most people who pay attention to Civil War news are aware of the recent controversy at Gettysburg concerning Dr. Latschar. He was apparently resigning from a prominent job with the National Park Service to become head of a large local group supporting the park. There was some discussion of ethics and a possible conflict of interest, and Dr. Latschar withdrew from consideration. I’m being deliberately vague here, because my point doesn’t concern the details of the matter or my opinion.

To my mind, however, a “discussion” group by its very nature implies that everyone does not share the same opinion. On such a group or forum, I would expect that people with opposing views could respectfully disagree and state their opposing views, preferably with some evidence supporting their arguments. This does not necessarily imply agreement being reached, as sometimes those with strong differing views simply have to state their case and agree to disagree. It’s one of those great things about this country, you have the right to your opinion and the right to state it as long as it doesn’t endanger others or infringe on their right to do so.

This could be confusion on my part, but my perception to this point is that moderators in such areas exist to ensure the rules of the discussion group are followed, that people are decent to one another, and that things don’t get out of hand. When wearing their moderator hat, they’re neutral and objective. I fully admit that this view may be overly simplified or even naive, but other groups that I’ve participated in such as the Civil War Discussion Group seem to follow this model. I think Joe Avalon at Civil War Interactive’s forums does this particularly well. Maybe he’s just spoiled me — as I’ve stated numerous times I’m fairly new to this game.

I recently joined the Gettysburg Discussion Group. My thinking was that the group would probably have lots of great information and discussions about various aspects of the battle which I find interesting. If there’s one battle upon which people have an opinion in the Civil War, it’s usually Gettysburg (with no offense to those western theater afficionados out there). And I must say that it appears to be a group of very learned folks who know a great deal about the battle.

This issue with Dr. Latschar has stirred some pretty strong sentiment on both sides. Given the group’s focus, it was no surprise to me when it drew a good deal of discussion on GDG. Two opposing views were stated, somewhat strongly but not to my mind offensively. Opposing arguments were stated, levels of experience were compared, and the two individuals agreed to disagree. Respectfully, it seemed to me. At this point, a moderator stepped in with a long, somewhat emotional tirade about the view he didn’t support, questioned its relevance, and stated that anyone who didn’t agree with him wasn’t “for” Gettysburg preservation.

This gave me pause. So if anyone who doesn’t agree is against the entire park and its preservation? I’m not a big fan of all or nothing arguments. Maybe I’m just not rigid enough in my thinking. Discussion, as long as it doesn’t descend into personal attacks and such, is the point of such groups. So if we can’t have differing opinions, what’s the point? Is it a discussion group or a fan site?

It wasn’t, however, my site, and the owner/ moderator of each site can run it as he/ she/ they choose. So I quietly unsubscribed from the group. Their site, their rules. But it bothered me enough that I felt I needed to post about it. Not as an attack on the GDG. There have been other good discussions there where I learned a good bit. As I said, it seems to be a place where some very smart folks can discuss the battle. I’ve seen the same “problem” (my view, others may not have an issue with such an approach) in other places, this is simply the most recent example which prompted me to write about it.

I think discussion groups are a valuable resource, and excellent source of inquiry into historical events. Cases are often made, and not always agreed with. But the evidence behind the arguments and the discussion of sources from which they came is more than worth the price (generally free) of admission. And that’s not even mentioning the eloquence oftentimes expressed by “amateur” historians.

Just my two cents. And for the sake of the comments, please note that my topic is discussion groups, not the Latschar situation. That lies close enough to politics that I’ll keep my opinion to myself.

I hadn’t meant to wait this long to get the first post of the year up, but real life has a way of claiming its due time. I noticed when I logged on this evening that my New Year’s post was my 300th, and the site went over 20,000 visits last week as well. Nice to start the year off with a couple of milestones. Thank you to everyone who has visited, and especially those who keep coming back.

Posts will most likely be infrequent (best case) or nonexistent (worst case) until the 23rd. I’ve been recalled from retirement to active duty, and included in this is an all expense-paid trip to South Carolina to be put back into the personnel system, finance system, healthcare system, etc. This was neither involuntary nor unexpected, but preparing for the trip has consumed a good deal of my time of late. So depending on connectivity and the cooperation of my ancient laptop, maybe I’ll manage a few posts in the interim. We also found and successfully bid on a house this week, which although time-consuming has come as a great relief.

As for the year ahead, I’m not one for resolutions, as they tend to wear out long before the year does. Instead I have some goals for the year for the blog, my research and other writing projects. They aren’t listed in any particular order.

1. 100 posts for the year, which may be a challenge with a slow January.
2. Finish the 6th Cavalry Fiddler’s Green articles, and add more diversity from the other regiments.
3. Finish my portion of the virtual battlefield project started with Craig Swain.
4. Have a magazine article accepted for publication.
5. Complete transcription and annotation of the manuscript started in 2008.
6. Feature the 4th Cavalry in 1863 on the blog to learn more of the western theater.
7. More posts explaining facets of cavalry life and tactics.
8. Finish the company muster rolls for at least 8 of the 12 companies of the 6th Cavalry.

The blog format will remain the same for now. I’m considering switching to a different service, but am not yet convinced. I haven’t had any problems with this one other than the ability to post separate pages, and have thought of a workaround or two that might work. We’ll see.

See you on the high ground, either this week or next.

Finally took some time today for some blog housekeeping (I tried ‘blogkeeping’ and it just didn’t look right). The observant reader will note several new additions in the recommended blogs to the right. The housekeeping highlights:

Updated the links for Hoofbeats and Cold Steel and Civil War Memory.

Added several new links. Robert Grandchamp’s 7th Rhode Island Volunteers is a new blog that shows great promise, and will give me yet another perspective on presenting regimental histories. Jim Lamason’s Thoughts of a Native Son of New Jersey also shows promise. I find Jim Beeghley’s Teaching the Civil War With Technology, with many interesting ideas. I have added Jim Bissland’s Blood, Tears, and Glory and the collaborative Army of Tennessee to provide some western theater balance to the blog for the new year. Although BT and G isn’t currently being written, it ties in well with the wealth of Ohio regulars that I’ve turned up this year.

I’ve also added a site that’s probably not new, but is new to me. Gettysburg Daily looks to be a very interesting site.

The next round of updates will include distinct lists between ‘normal’ blogs and ‘information compilation’ blogs, but there wasn’t time for that today.

Every once in a while, the stars line up just right and provide a real treat, usually when one isn’t looking for it. I was incredibly fortunate this weekend, one of those nice coincidences that make me eager to see the sunrise each morning.

It all started with a need for some quality adult time with my wife. We have a 17 month old, so there aren’t huge amounts of adult time. Not that I don’t love the little guy to death and spoil him unmercifully, but any parents out there know what I’m talking about. Also, work’s been an absolute bear lately — one day off last pay period, two days the one before that. So we prevailed upon grandma and grandpa to babysit (which unsurprisingly required absolutely no armtwisting) so we could go to lunch and goof around town for a couple of hours.

My wife wanted to have lunch at a place she was very familiar with downtown where I hadn’t been. As we walked up to the place, I noticed a used bookstore right next door. I mentioned that we’d have to stop in after lunch. We had a very good lunch (she’s nearly always right about restaurants), and she reminded me as we were leaving that I wanted to look in the bookstore before we went home. It’s small, independently owned store, and has only been open for a couple of months.

As we walked in the door, I noticed some volumes of the Official Records along the top of the bookcases across the room. I’m enough of a Civil War junkie that my wife even recognized them on sight and asked, “Are those what I think they are?” I agreed that they were and strolled over to take a look while she chatted with the owner. Once I reached the shelf, I saw that they were volumes 1-20. Curious. I turned around, and there they were down the tops of the bokkcases on the other wall. It was an entire set, well over half of them still in shrink-wrap. Definitely not something I ever expected to see in Colorado.

The OR’s something I’ve always enjoyed, in an abstract sort of way. I’ve used it extensively in college libraries, and my wife bought me a cd version a couple of years ago for Christmas. But I like books. I like the feel of them, the smell of them. Being able to pull up reports from the cd is nice, but it’s not the same as being able to open a book and look at them in print. Call me old-fashioned. One way is faster, the other is more fun to me. But I digress.

I never thought I’d own a full set, didn’t really think it would be practical. I’ve collected a few individual volumes that specifically interested me such as the ones on Gettysburg, Chancellorsville and Wilson’s Creek, and always have an eye out for others that might help my research. particularly on the Western Theater. But the whole thing? 130 volumes? Where would you put them all? And it would be price-prohibitive. $3,500 plus shipping from North Carolina? Not going to happen. But this is, after all, what libraries are for.

So we looked around the store, found a couple of books (for some reason I’ve never read Sears’ Gettysburg, but I have it now), and went up to the counter to check out. I asked him idly how much the volumes of the OR that he had on display were.

“Well,” he said. “I resolved when I moved from my last location to this one that I was going to be a book seller, not a book collector. Now that is a complete set, and it’s a lot of books, but I’ll sell it to you for $x.”

My wife looked at me. I very carefully did not look at my wife. We talked with him some more and then left, promising to return. The Civil War section was small but pretty good, and he has a really good collection of westward expansion books (my undergrad concentration). Trying to encourage return visits, the owner gave my wife a 20% off card for her next visit.

So we get into the car to drive home, and my wife asks, “That was a really good price, wasn’t it?” Carefully watching the road, I replied that it was an extremely good price, and how much the set would cost new. She mulled this over for a half a block or so before telling me to turn around, that I’d better appreciate this, that it would be my present for Christmas, anniversary, etc. And back we went.

After telling me to check and make sure the set was complete, she talked to the owner. Veteran shopper that she is, she not only got the set at the already low price, she talked him into giving her the 20% off as well. So I am now the proud owner of an entire set of the OR for the price of just over $500 including tax.

Yes, my wife is pretty wonderful. Not only has she tolerated my time and space-consuming hobby, she has aided and abetted it. This is truly above and beyond the call of duty. And she even thought it necessary to ask if she’d spoiled my Christmas because I knew what I was getting!

My son will get to learn about the Civil War from the OR, from the comfort of his own home. Between these and the copy of the Golden Book I found last summer, I figure he’s a lock for a Civil War scholar. And I plan on spending just a little bit of time with them in the meantime. Now I just have to figure out where to put them all.

Craig Swain has a couple of fantastic posts on forming Civil War databases over on his blog To the Sound of the Guns. It’s a little bit of a stretch to follow it all, but I’m definitely learning things. Hopefully it will help with the 6th US Cavalry history project that I seem to be neck-deep in.

These two posts aside, I still heartily recommend Craig’s site. The Historical Marker Database is growing by the day.