Odds & Ends: May 17, 2008

Everyone reading this knows TOCWOC is a Civil War blog. Odds & Ends does focus on the Civil War, but it does so by looking at blogs and web sites whose main focus often isn’t the Civil War or even history. This particular Odds & Ends has a bit of a wargaming bent this time around, but as usual we’ll be looking at quite a few different Civil War related items from around the blogosphere and the World Wide Web. Let’s jump right in:

• Dale Cox’s book The Battle of Massard Prairie, is now available at Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park in northwest Arkansas. Proceeds benefit the new Driving Tour project for the battle of Cane Hill, so buy yours today!

• Scott Mingus covers improving battlefield terrain (with some photos of his battlefields for interested readers)

• David Woodbury relates the sad state of most of the Atlanta area battlefields and contrasts this with the pristine state of the Hastings battlefield of 1066

• What was the reason for the battle of Gettysburg? Someone wants to know at Yahoo! Answers…

• Pickett’s Charge is explored at War and Game…as is the topic of Computer Geeks and War

• A student presentation on the Battle of Gettysburg and its aftermath at TeacherTube, a really interesting education site using YouTube-like videos

• Pawnderings reviews Shiloh, the second of three collectible card games in the Dixie Series from Columbia Games

• Is the Second Battle of Gettysburg being fought today? The Low-Tech Times believes so.

• Another of Meade’s Corps commanders at Gettysburg finally has a relatively recent biography

• Craig Hodgkins chaperones a bunch of Eighth Graders, including his daughter, on a tour of the Gettysburg Battlefield

• Waynesville, North Carolina celebrates Confederate Memorial Day

• The Dunker Church as “An Enduring Symbol of Peace” amidst the carnage at Antietam

• Many of you know Antietam is the bloodiest single day in American history. But do you know which battle was the bloodiest on American soil before the Civil War began? Note: Does anyone have any info on this one? I’m pretty sure Shiloh, for instance, was bloodier than the Battle of Carillon.

• More on relic hunter Sam White’s unfortunate demise

• Civil War reenactors, Barack Obama, and Leon Trotsky? Dawg’s Blawg has the connection.

• Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the “Motherless Child”

• A Civil War miniatures project for a contest featuring a “Captured” theme

• A short review of Civil War Command and Strategy by Archer Jones