After writing a few hobby related blogs, I decided it was time to start blogging about the American Civil War. I have been a student of the war since I first set eyes on the American Heritage book on the American Civil War back in 2nd grade at Haynesfield Elementary School Library in Bristol, Tennessee. The wonderful maps filled with soldiers captured my young imagination and set me on a lifelong pursuit of Civil War knowledge.
My grandfather helped fuel my interest with gifts of fabulous Britian's Swoppet Civil War soldiers. I can still remember my first box of Confederates, given to me while living on a farm in Bristol, Virginia in 1969. Of course my understanding of the Civil War in those childhood years was not very well formulated and the various causes and politics associated with the war were lost on my many battles with Marx Blue and Grey warriors.
Growing up in Northeast Tennessee in the late 60's and early 70's was a great time for a young Civil War student. Bristol was an ideal location and was itself of course famous for being the home of a young lawyer named John Singleton Mosby. And just down the road (Lee Highway) was Abingdon, Virginia, which was the home of Joseph E. Johnston. And just down Highway 58 Jeb Stuart Highway was of course the birthplace of Jeb Stuart.
And to the south of Bristol was Greeneville, Tennessee, which was the home of Andrew Johnson and the site of General John Hunt Morgan's death at the hands of some very unkind Federal Cavalry. The Battles of Jonesville, Saltville, Knoxville, New Market, and Chattanooga were relatively close by. And during those years, my family took many trips to visit my mother's parents in Philadelphia. So it was that I became very familiar with and fond of the Shenandoah Valley. It would be hard to find a greater cradle of Civil War history than one finds in the Shenandoah Valley. And the many drives to and from Philly allowed me to see Manassas, Antietam, Front Royal, New Market, and Gettysburg. I count myself very luck to have grown up where I did.
In the early 80's I found myself living in St. Louis, Missouri. Missouri is of course number three after Virginia and Tennessee for the largest number of Civil War engagements. Now at first I was pretty unhappy to be in Missouri. Having grown up with Lee Highway and Stonewall Jackson Jr. High...I was used to the exploits of the Army of Northern Virginia. Like many people, I wasn't very familiar with the war in the West outside of Shiloh, Murfeesboro and Chickamauga. And the Trans-Mississippi...I think I thought that was an airline at the time.
Missouri introduced me to the darker side of the War Between the Sates. Jesse James, Bloody Bill Anderson, Quantrill, and Sam Hildebrand's exploits were all around me. Wilson's Creek, Pilot Knob and Athens were the primary battlefields, but the war was literally all around me. I wouldn't appreciate the wealth of Civil War history for a number of years.
Following college at Valparaiso University, I returned to St. Louis and began a 1 year stint with the Missouri Historical Society. In the course of assisting with the first inventory of the collections since the 1860's. The Missouri Historical Society has some amazing Civil War artifacts. I will however save that for another blog post.
It was at this time in 1990, that my Civil War studies finally matured and found a focus. After reading Thomas Connelly's outstanding two volume work on the Confederate Army of Tennessee, I was hooked and knew what direction I wanted to go. Yet another example of "Go West Young Man". I had my direction and my army...but still needed a person to focus my energies on.
And then he appeared...mounted on a horse with blue battle flags with silver moons on them behind this Confederate General. I had been flipping through a 1990 copy of America's Civil War and came across Rick Reeves painting of Patrick Cleburne moments before leading the assault at Franklin. I was so intrigued that I quickly look for anything about the Battle of Franklin I could find at the local library. There was only one book and that was Five Tragic Hours by McDonough and Connelly. It was a great book and launched me into my over 20 years of study of Patrick Cleburne, the Battle of Franklin and the Army of Tennessee.
And now you know my long story (my apologies). What you can expect on this blog over the next weeks, months and years will be discussions of the Army of Tennessee, the Battle of Franklin in particular and the War in the Trans-Mississippi. Now that I call Tulsa, OK home, the Trans-Mississippi is my new backyard.
I hope this blog will be of interest to those who chance upon it and that it will add something new to the vast quantity of Civil War material on the net.
Thanks!
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