How long does it typically take you to create a map of a famous battle?<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i>It typically takes six to eight months to do the research, draft the map, and then ink in the data and watercolor the whole concern. \u00a0In the midst of that process, I also work out the information and secure the images for the reverse side of the map. \u00a0That six or eight months means seven days a week, morning, noon and night. \u00a0The maps are great fun but they\u2019re also a lot of work.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i>What interests you most about the Civil War?<\/i><\/p>\n
The most interesting thing about the Civil War is the participants. The panoply of characters, Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, JEB Stuart, and more obscure characters like Richard Ewell (he married a widow and always introduced his wife as \u201cMrs. Brown\u201d), Confederate general Joe Johnston who hated president Jeff Davis so much that you wouldn\u2019t know from his memoir that he was fighting the Yankees, he\u2019s always fighting Davis. \u00a0Then George B. McClellan, Union general whose reputation collapsed because the stupid, vainglorious letters he wrote to his wife revealed him to be a supercilious jerk. \u00a0There was General George Custer (of Little Big Horn fame) who was a brilliant cavalry leader who perfumed his flowing locks and designed a uniform that made him look like a circus performer. \u00a0It was a wild bunch of characters.\u00a0 England had Dickens\u2019 characters. \u00a0We had these guys. \u00a0Some of the most noble people in history, and some of the most ignoble, made up the cast of our Civil War.<\/p>\n
Also, most wars are futile. For example, the First World War led directly to the Second World War and the Second World War wasn\u2019t even over when the Cold War got underway. \u00a0In contrast, the Civil War was fought to end slavery and preserve the United States. \u00a0When the Civil War was over, slavery was dead and the United States lived. \u00a0Success!<\/p>\n
Who do you think was the greatest Confederate General?<\/i><\/p>\n
I think Stonewall Jackson was the South\u2019s great general but he had the advantage in that regard of dying too early in the war to confront the best Union generals. \u00a0But I also think there was something vaguely\u2014for want of a better term\u2014autistic, about him. \u00a0He seems kind of blank in terms of personality and he was a bewildering figure to his fellow generals. \u00a0And his successes came in the first half of the war when the south fought with the immense advantage of a friendly population and in familiar countryside. \u00a0His Valley Campaign, upon which his fame primarily rests, would not have been possible once Union forces knew the roads and topography as well as he did. \u00a0But circumstances are what they are and he was, in my mind, the best in the 1861-1863 timeframe.<\/p>\n
What is the oldest battle that you mapped?<\/i><\/p>\n
The oldest battle I\u2019ve mapped is the Revolutionary battlefield of Saratoga in NYS. \u00a0It was fought in 1777. \u00a0The oldest Civil War battlefield I\u2019ve mapped is Manassas or Bull Run, VA. \u00a0Two battles were fought there, 1861 and 1862.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How long does it typically take you to create a map of a famous battle? \u00a0It typically takes six to eight months to do the research, draft the map, and then ink in the data and watercolor the whole concern. … Continue reading