I appreciate more than you all know how you have supported me through this. I know the posts have been long and windy, taking up valuable time. Bless you for it. Zouaves were originally certain French light infantry regiments, which served in French North Africa. Not only did they have distinctive uniforms, but they had…
With a Rebel Yell by Mort Künstler I highly recommend this artist’s work for quality and authenticity. He’s excellent. Y is for yell. I wavered between a scene with a Yankee captain at a soiree and the yell, but I decide to go with the yell since most people don’t realize what an important part…
I like sprinkling “gems” of description through my writing. I don’t go into great detail about every person and every item, though I do offer more than many writers do. Instead of describing a round, yellow green apple of medium size, sometimes it’s more efficient to just say, “He bit into the Granny Smith apple…
George Ellsworth Gen. John Hunt Morgan Mention wiretapping and everyone automatically thinks of FBI, NSA, smarmy illegal eavesdropping by unethical private investigators and various other modern scenarios, but it actually began long before. Some people elevated it to an art form during the Civil War. George Ellsworth was one of those men. Ellsworth was Canadian…
Vivandiere’s were first used by the French. They were women who followed the armies, as sutlers or canteen keepers. In the American Civil War, they assumed nursing duties mainly, often tending wounded on the battlegrounds even during the battles. Sometimes, just taking water to wounded was enough to save a life. Several of these women…
It will come as a surprise to many that older blacks, slave or free, were referred to as “Auntie” or “Uncle” by many people whether they knew them or not. I had read this before, but wasn’t really sure about the truth of the matter until I started reading diaries and letters. In Sarah Morgan’s…
We’re almost through the month. That’s good and bad. We’ve almost burned through another month of our lives! What do we have to show for it? Something good I hope. The schoolhouse was packed. I feared there wouldn’t be enough seating even though we’d hauled out all the desks and crammed every chair and bench…
Frank Stringfellow Stringfellow headstone, which has a pointed top as many Confederate stones do so Union sympathizers can’t sit on it. The television show Mercy Street has introduced a character Frank Stringfellow. I had high hopes for the show and in a lot of ways I enjoy it because they get a lot of things…
This snow battle won’t make it into Rain Crow as the book will probably end sometime at the end of 1861, but if there is a second or third book, I will surely find a way for Lorena or Baron to be present. During the winter of 1862-1863 the snow fell particularly deep and moist…
I have a steamer trunk similar to this and it would be like some of the trunks Lorena and Imogene have. Some of the traveling Victorian vanity cases in were quite elegant. With the outbreak of war, supplies of medicines and manufactured goods soon became a problem in the South, which was definitely a agrarian…