New On CWL's Bookshelf: Jackson's MD, Balls Bluff And Crimean War Novel

Lucky me! Only 4.5 hours west of Gettysburg! We left on a cold cloudy Friday and returned on a cold cloudy Sunday; we were happy to have no blowing snow on the Pennyslvania turnpike in the Appalachian Mountains. The Brafferton Inn once again provided comfortable quarters and a delicious (skip a lunch) breakfast. Of course, there is always bookshopping to do.

I dropped in to the Farnsworth House bookstore to pick up the most recent issue of Gettysburg Magazine and also found a well-priced copy of Jim Morgan's A Little Short of Boats which I had been hoping to add to the personal bookshelf for a while. The Gettysburg Magazine, now owned and edited by Andy Turner, has retained the quality of the first 35 issues and has begun to publish some very attractive photography by the magazine readers and Turner himself.

Another necessary visit is The Antique Center on Baltimore Street right off the square. A couple of thousand books are marked 50% the retail price. I found a copy of John W. Schildt's Hunter Holmes Maguire: Stonewall Jackson's Doctor for $7.50 in paperback and Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War ,edited by William Blair, in hardcover for $15.

I also stopped in at Gallery 30 on York Street right off the square and picked up Will Hutchinson's Follow Me To Glory, a novel of the Crimean War. In a failure to control an impluse, I picked up a small print of the McPherson Barn crafted by the pastel artist Jeff Fioravanti. Hutchinson, former Marine, retired Nuclear Regulartory Commission analyst, a Civil War reeanactor with the National Regiment and a Napoleonic Wars enthusiastic researcher, has penned his first novel which reminds of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series.

When not shopping for books, I was pricing percussion caps for the Ninth Pennyslvania Reserves and a Hardee hat for myself at Memories Past and the Regimental Quartermaster. Since I been reading Earl Hess' Pickett's Charge: The Last Charge at Gettysburg, I took the book to the Angle and photgraphed the monuments, with the goal of creating an online flash card database of the monuments that are most likely to be on the Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide exam in December. Send me an email if you have an interest in the flash cards or looking for a study-buddy for the exam.