The Chambersburg Civil War Seminar series comes to Sharpsburg this month with more than 40 speakers and guides, and runs over 5 days — July 25th thru 29th. This will be the most comprehensive such event held in recent memory, and promises something for every student of the Battle of Antietam.

Featured speakers and tour guides include most of the very best on the subject including Tom Clemens, Ed Bearrs, John Schildt, John Priest, Ted Alexander, REL Krick, Dennis Frye, Ethan Rafuse, Mark Snell, Perry Jamieson, and just about the entire Battlefield staff including fellow bloggers Hoptak and Gentile.

Bonus events include a sneak-peek at Virtual Antietam with Stephen Recker, the famous Paul Chiles Artillery Hell tour, and Pat Falci does AP Hill.

See the organizer’s home page for more details and registration information.

I’m keeping my eyes open for Ezra Carman‘s description of the battle of Antietam coming to the bookstore soon, thanks to a post by the Civil War Librarian back in May .

Ezra Ayres Carman (c. 1862-65, USAMHI)

For Antietam scholars, Carman is the mother lode. I have chunks of his manuscript, and have heard about Tom Clemens’ ongoing work, but as far as I know, no published versions yet exist.

This one has been edited by Joseph “Jake” Pierro, and Amazon has it listed at $95 in pre-order. Yikes. Scroll down at Amazon for early blurbs for the book.

Jake has been on the TalkAntietam email group the last couple of days and has spoken a little of his work and Carman there. Drop in and join the conversation.

(I’m not dead yet)

Apologies to both of our readers for this empty space. Vocational and family responsibilities have been overwhelming, leaving no room for blogging or other online work. Rest assured I’ll be back as soon as possible – within a week, I should think. I have a backlog of posts yearning to breathe free …

Be assured also that Military History Carnival #3 will be hosted here on June 17th as promised. Cards and letters have been pouring in, so I hope it will be a blockbuster.

Another Fresh Fish, as Laurie would say: I’ve chanced upon Lincoln Studies by SIU doctoral student Samuel P. Wheeler, who established a website of the same name in February.

Please join me in welcoming another viewpoint to the ‘sphere. Best wishes, and we’ll hope for good stuff, Samuel!

In a new article calling for more academic attention to military history, Professor David Bell reassures:

Of course, promoting such historical knowledge does not mean subsidizing more books on subjects like cavalry tactics at the Battle of Antietam–which the public itself already subsidizes quite nicely …

He could have found a better example of a clichéd pop history topic (hint for next time: look for keywords like Blitzkrieg or Gettysburg).

Given the almost complete tactical insignificance of cavalry at the battle of Antietam, there are few, if any, published works specific to the subject.

Forget it, he’s rolling.

This is only a tiny part of an otherwise excellent article. And, yes, I recognize that Bell’s just taking a poke at “guns and drums” books – those of little interest to real scholars.

As one of the unwashed mass across the academic vs. public divide, I suppose I could blog a response to that perception or wonder aloud about Dr Bell’s contention that academics should “trust in the instincts of the general public”.

But who’d care? Instead, I’ll amuse myself with this small gaffe.

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Notes

The article quoted and linked above is Military history bites the dust. Casualty of War from The New Republic (online edition), by David A. Bell. Post date 05.09.07 | Issue date 05.07.07.

Per the magazine: David A. Bell is a contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare As We Know It. He’s also professor at Johns Hopkins.

Thanks to Dr J A Klinghoffer, blogging on HNN’s Deja Vu, for the quotes from Dr Bell’s piece which clued me to it.
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Cultural Reference

See a clip of the movie speech excerpted in the title of this post.