It's my birthday...

Do you remember the old song (from the '50s, I think) - "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to"? Well, it is my birthday (not sixteenth, I'll admit) today, and while the weather is gloomy (rain and snow), I'm not crying. I do have a couple of announcements for you.

First, my latest book, North Carolina Remembers Chancellorsville, will be released in about a month. This project is collection of letters and accounts written by North Carolina soldiers about the May 1863 battle. Like North Carolina Remembers Gettysburg, these letters are something that you can take to the battlefield, and stand and almost see what the soldiers themselves saw. I really think that these collections of letters are an important aspect of preserving the war, and I am looking forward to working with Ten Roads Publishing on future projects. By the way, if your group is interested in a discussion about North Carolina and the battle of Chancellorsville, please drop me a line.

Second. Most of you know that I have been fascinated with the Branch-Lane brigade for a long time. My first book was The Thirty-seventh North Carolina Troops: Tar Heels in the Army of Northern Virginia (2003). Later, I wrote The Battle of Hanover Court House: Turning Point of the Peninsula Campaign (2006). And there have been several articles about the brigade in Gettysburg Magazine and America's Civil War, among others. For the past few weeks, I've been talking to a publisher about writing a brigade history, and I'm happy to announce that I signed a contract a few days ago with Savas Beatie in California to write a book on this deserving brigade. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about this project. It is like visiting with old friends. More details will follow in the future.