Expert?

In case you missed the facebook announcement, I received my first case of General Lee's Immortals yesterday. The rest will arrive next week, and I'll be getting orders out then. If you have still not ordered a signed copy, please visit my store page.

On the inside back cover is a blurb about yours truly: "Michael C. Hardy is a widely recognized expert and author on the Civil War." This is something that the great folks at Savas Beatie wrote. "widely recognized expert" are the three words that I'm trying to wrap my head around. Have I reached the "widely recognized expert" stage? Perhaps.... I guess... With General Lee's Immortals being my twenty-second book, maybe?

I've never been hung up on titles. I don't have a wall of fame in my office that showcases some of the awards y'all have so graciously bestowed upon me. I don't even have my diploma from Alabama framed. I was in awe several years ago when someone reviewing my book on the 58th NC considered me a "veteran Civil War writer."

All I want to do, all I really ever have wanted to do, is to talk history. US history - Southern history. I want to try and capture what's out there for future generations. I want to make it accessible, so school kids and college students and everyday people can go to a library or bookstore and pick up a book and learn. Learn about their communities, and about some of these regiments, and brigades, and battles. And don't tell me it cannot be done. I had a professional tell me once that there was not enough information out there to write a book on Charlotte and the War. I guess I proved that person wrong! (Maybe it was a dare to get me to write the book!)

"Veteran Civil War writer" I get. With twenty-two and soon to be twenty-three books in print, I get the veteran part. "Widely recognized expert?" I'll be the first to say that there is a whole lot I do not know about the time period. I've never read a book on Phil Sheridan (sorry Eric Wittenburg), or Hannibal Hamlin, or anything dealing with the Trans-Mississippi department. Last year’s foray into the legal side of American history has taught me much. And there is so much more to learn, to read through, to talk about.

Oh well, I guess I'll keep digging. I'm quite certain there is something fresh on that next page I'll be turning over.