Month: November 2008

  • The Lone Marksman

    As a followup to my previous post about a present-day marksman in Afghanistan, I am posting (with his kind permission) Gary Yee’s article about a lone marksman at the Battle of New Orleans and the effect he had. Gary, who will be coming out with a sharpshooting book of his own shortly, is one of […]

  • Two Brothers: One North, One South

    David H. Jones new novel Two Brothers: One North,One South tells the true story of the Prentiss brothers William and Clifton whose familial love will be strained by the Civil War. The book opens in May 1865 with mortally injured William Prentiss admittance to the Armory Square Hospital. Despite being a Rebel the poet and […]

  • A Rifleman At War

    There’s a lot of ongoing controversy about the effect of the rifle in battle, but there’s no question that in certain times and places an individual rifleman can have a powerful effect. One such example comes to us from Afghanistan: During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun […]

  • Fort Sanders Anniversary

    This week marks the anniversary of the ill-fated Confederate assault on Fort Sanders, on what was then the outskirts of Knoxville, TN. This year’s anniversary of the Knoxville campaign comes as students of the Civil War in East Tennessee and around the country begin organizing a campaign of their own to commemorate the war’s upcoming […]

  • Archives On Line

    More and more archives are being digitized and made available on the web. The latest is The Archives of Michigan digital collection. Lots of good stuff here, including muster rolls, casualty lists and a very good selection of period photos. I haven’t had a chance to look through it but it looks promising for Michigan […]

  • Sharpshooters in Action

    While looking through Francis A. Walker’s Second Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac I came across this passage, which describes the fighting between Heth’s division and Hancock’s Second Corps at the Battle of Boydton Plank Road: It may be interesting to pass to the Confederate side and see how the operations of the […]

  • Review: Lincoln and His Admirals

    Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig L. Symonds Product Details Hardcover: 448 pages Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 17, 2008) Language: English ISBN-10: 0195310225 ISBN-13: 978-0195310221 If this book is not a finalist for a major award in Lincoln and Civil War history, we will have a gross injustice. This intelligent, interesting, readable book […]