Category: Best of TOCWOC – 2008

  • Controversies of a Campaign: Why Did French Attack the Sunken Road At Antietam?

    I just finished reading Marion V. Armstrong’s new book Unfurl Those Colors!: McClellan, Sumner, and the Second Army Corps in the Antietam Campaign, and one of Armstrong’s theories just doesn’t sit right with me.  Before we go into details let me give you a little bit of background.  The fight over the northern portion of […]

  • What is PFD and How Do You Find It?: Counting Heads In Civil War Regiments, Part 1

    Note: Prior to reading this post, it will be a good idea to have the Consolidated Morning Report of the 91st Pennsylvania for September 26, 1863 open in another browser window.  I’ve set up the link above to open in a new window for your convenience. Reader Mark Kucinic read my post Counting Heads: Civil […]

  • Review: Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations

    Phillip E. Myers. Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations (New Studies in U.S. Foreign Relations). Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press (March 28, 2008). 332 pages, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN: 978-0873389457 $55.00 (Hardcover w/DJ). How close did Great Britain and the North come to blows while the American Civil War […]

  • A Guide to Civil War Books for Beginners, Part 1: Civil War Overviews

    This is the first of hopefully many blog entries for beginning Civil War readers about Civil War books they might like to read.  This is not a post aimed at children or young adults, though I do hope to target those audiences in the future as well.  Instead, I hope to provide a nice guide […]

  • Should Ewell have taken “That Hill”?

    Last weekend was my second trip to Gettysburg. Living in the deep south, some 13 hours away by car, it is sometimes difficult to get to places that we really want to go. That being said, it was my very FIRST time to Culp’s Hill. The first time I went (three years ago), I went […]

  • How To Read Three Gettysburg Books At Once

    Sometimes books just go together well, doing in tandem what each individually is incapable of alone. This definitely applies to the three books I’ll be discussing today. Bradley Gottfried’s books The Maps of Gettysburg and Brigades of Gettysburg obviously can be used together. Throw in Larry Tagg’s The Generals of Gettysburg and you have a […]

  • Dark Command: John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and the Butchering of Civil War History

    Dark Command, a John Wayne and Claire Trevor vehicle, is loosely based on the Civil War career of William Clarke Quantrill, the Confederate guerrilla operating mostly in Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War. When I write loosely, I should probably capitalize, bold, and underline that word. While the movie is entertaining if you like […]