Thursday, March 14, 2019

Things Are Picking Up

This time of year always seems to be very busy and it is no different this year. March-May are, as usual, going to be very hectic and it starts this weekend.

Bentonville Battlefield - "A Fighting Chance for Life"
I will be participating in this program Saturday and Sunday. During the day, our group will be portraying Federal artillery and crewing the site's 3-inch ordnance rifle. But the real meat of this program is the Saturday evening portion which will recreate field hospital scenes in and around the Harper House. This program has been revamped from previous iterations and will be much more serious, thought-provoking, and graphic this time. It will not be for the faint of heart and guests are being warned ahead of time about the physical and psychological nature of what is being portrayed. The site staff has put some really solid research behind this and I'm looking forward to how it comes off. My group will be portraying surgeons and hospital stewards for this portion of the program.

The first weekend of April sees me yet again at Bentonville to participate in their three-day tour of the Carolina's Campaign, titled "Two Weeks of Fury." Guest speakers/tour leaders include Craig Symonds, John Marszalek, Eric Wittenberg, and Wade Sokolosky. I'll be serving as chauffeur for at least some of them for the weekend. Should be fun.

Writing - I just finished and sent to the editor the article I co-authored on the US Navy's role in the Battle of New Bern. I'm very happy with the way it turned out and can't wait to see it in print sometime late this year (hopefully). It will be my third feature length article for Civil War Navy Magazine. I am considering expanding upon this article to write about the US Navy's role in the Burnside Expedition, possibly for submission to Military Collector & Historian, but I'll have to see what time allows.

Reading - If you look at the What I'm Currently Reading sidebar on the blog you'll see that I've inserted Hampton Newsome's just released book at the top of the list. If the first chapter is any indication, this is going to be a great book and should be the standard on the topic for a long time to come.

Otherwise, I will be giving a few presentations to various groups, participating in two 18th century living history programs at Historic Halifax and Alamance Battleground, and working on another book review.

Of course, there are four disc golf tournaments and numerous concerts sprinkled in among all of this as well. It's enough to keep me hopping, for sure.

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