TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

In my previous life as a newspaper writer, I found myself having to deal with all kinds of zealots. But the worst were environmentalists (even more so than religious nuts). I never met a group of people so sure they were right and everyone else was wrong who didn’t agree with their point of view. [...]

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I’ve been busy the past few weeks going through about 1,000 pages of documents surrounding Everton Conger’s suspension in 1883 from the Territorial Supreme Court bench in Montana, so I haven’t had time to do much in the way of blog work. But since I feel like I need to carry my weight here a [...]

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Of all the stories regarding Everton J. Conger and his successful capture of John Wilkes Booth, one that has always intrigued me is why did Conger decide it was time to fire Richard Garrett’s tobacco barn after hours of making what seemed empty threats to do so?
From Conger’s own testimony all we get is that [...]

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At 3 p.m. Eastern time on Oct. 15, the National Geographic Channel will re-air “The Hunt For Lincoln’s Assassin”. This little flick means a lot to me, since I was fortunate enough to appear on camera. The documentary, which originally aired in April of this year, spotlights Everton Conger, the man whose biography I have [...]

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When I was in college 25 plus years ago, doing research consisted mainly of going to the library, pulling books and journals off the shelf, slogging through reel after reel of microfilm and, if you were lucky, finding a gem or two that was buried deep within a dry dusty tome. While the basics of [...]

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As someone knee-deep into writing his first book, I have a new respect for those who have gone before me. Even though I’ve been researching the life of Everton Conger for almost 12 years now, my study has only scratched the surface. Much of that comes from the fact that very few letters written by [...]

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A small wooden bust of Abraham Lincoln was the flint which sparked my interest in the Civil War. At the age of 7, I was incapable of any deep thoughts about what Lincoln guided the country through, but I knew the Civil War and this fascinating man were interests I would hold for the rest [...]

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