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From: Len Riedel, Executive Director
Date: 2/9/2004
Time: 8:13:03 PM
Remote Name: 24.53.156.243
I rarely read fiction, having more than enough accumulated historical reading to do--having said that in preparation for our annual meeting I am reading John Jakes' Charleston. It is wonderfully refreshing and interesting. I think good historical fiction is a bridge to more serious study--I appreciate the comment. Incidentally just finished Hurst's Nathan Bedford Forrest book--I was rewarded for my efforts. Very colorful and filled with juicy tidbits I had not known or considered. Catherine Clinton's book on Fanny Kemble was more a woman's rights book than a Civil War book--non the less it was also rewarding as a window into the life of victorian women and those that crossed over into the men's work world. Also finished A Confederate Yankee--the promise of the hook about a Maine boy in the Confederate forces is misleading--he had gone South a long time before and was a true Rebel. He endures Fort Pulaski and is a POW at Governor's Island and Johnston's Island in Sandusky. The central theme is rumors, rumors and more rumors of exchange. The book is useful and at $30 is a reasonable value. Next on reading list is to finish Wiley Sword's rewrite of Shiloh, Bloody April (about 1/3 through) then Weyth's book on That Devil Forrest. I'll follow it (am preping for a Forrest tour in May) with Morton's The Artillery of Nathan Bedford Forrest's Cavalry, Arthur Carter's biography of Earl Van Dorn That Tarnished Cavalier, Kenneth Hafendorpher's The Battle of Wildcat Mountain and Kenneth Stampp's America in 1857, A Nation on the Brink. Life is good!