Looking ahead to 2023.

 

  Whew… 2022 has come and gone. It was a good year. A History Lover’s Guide to North Carolina was released, and Hidden History of the Toe River Valley is just about ready to go in. The old office has been cleaned, and loads of old papers have been recycled or filed. I’ve also rebuilt my old pc. It should be running pretty well the next couple of years. My last post on here talked of the next project, a new history of the April 1864 battle of Plymouth, North Carolina. I’ve been doing some background reading on that subject. It was one of the few Confederate combined operations of the war, and it was a Confederate victory. For background reading, I started Rowena Reed’s Combined Operations in the Civil War a week or so ago. Wow! What a good book. Very critical of Union operations. While I have read thousands of books on the time period, it is amazing how many more there are to read.

   Most of my reading for the next few months will be tied up with this project. No, I’ll probably not read a horde of entire books (someone actually asked me that the other day). But I’ll be reading quite a few sections of books. Recently, I checked both Lincoln’s papers and U.S. Grant’s papers for references to the April 1864 battle. Lincoln, it appears, never mentioned the April 1864 battle. Grant did. We’ll need to explore this a little more.

 As far as more news, we are going to be turning this blog into a podcast. Yes, you will still be able to access the information here, but we will be doing recordings at the same time. More details to follow.

   Any Feeding the Army of Northern Virginia news? Well, I have an editor and went through her edits a couple of months ago, but still no timetable. I’ll post more details when I have them.

   2023 is going to be a great year! Lots of good research, many places to go, and many people to reconnect with or new friends to make. I look forward to sharing the journey with you!