yankeewriter85
New member
Greetings, all. Coolidge here. No, that's not my real name, but after some weird Internet situations, I've decided to just offer that as my name. Anyway, I am very excited to find this new Civil War forum on Find's. It looks like a great website in general, and an even better form specifically. I guess I can start out by briefly saying a few things about myself. I hail from Michigan, although I was born in Virginia and lived there well into my elementary years. I have a degree in history from a university in Virginia; I have self-published two novels about the war, one of which is a historical fiction novel about Gettysburg, and which has done modestly well. It is more about the experiences of the Gettysburg civilians, and the soldiers who I do talk about in the novel are the ones who were born and raised in Pennsylvania, one of them in Gettysburg itself (and he a Confederate, believe it or not). I deeply enjoyed researching, writing, editing, and promoting the book, and hope that maybe it can do a bit better after sharing it on websites such as this.
My favorite battle to study is, of course, Gettysburg, but I think I would have to say that Chancellorsville, Antietam, and Chickamauga are not far behind. They are incredibly fascinating too. Vicksburg was also an amazing battlefield/siegefield to study, although I have only had the honor of seeing it once. Petersburg, on the other hand, I have seen multiple times, and the Crater still blows me away, even though I first saw it when I was a kid because my dad had worked in Petersburg for a while. I love Lee and Lincoln equally, probably because I was born in Virginia but have lived more than half of my life in the North too. I guess you could say I'm kind of schizophrenic, but it helps me to see the war from both sides, which helps my writing.
As for relics, I have a pretty sizable collection of relics and souvenirs, mostly Minie balls and the like--including a box of them that an old codger from Richmond gave me back when I used to visit there with my father--although I have absolutely nothing compared to one fellow I know here in rural Michigan who has even gotten writeups in newspapers because of how amazing his collection is, which actually takes up a whole floor of his house. That's not even counting all the books and paintings he has too. I think I have like 100 books on the Civil War, but I would like to get more. I think it is great how people like you all preserve our past in a day and age when people care more about fashions and sports and the like, but I suppose that's true of every generation. Anyway, I work at a small college tutoring students in English and social studies, especially history, and am pleased to see how often I get to tell them about the Revolution and the Civil War. I wish I could do more. Keep up the good work, all of you.
My favorite battle to study is, of course, Gettysburg, but I think I would have to say that Chancellorsville, Antietam, and Chickamauga are not far behind. They are incredibly fascinating too. Vicksburg was also an amazing battlefield/siegefield to study, although I have only had the honor of seeing it once. Petersburg, on the other hand, I have seen multiple times, and the Crater still blows me away, even though I first saw it when I was a kid because my dad had worked in Petersburg for a while. I love Lee and Lincoln equally, probably because I was born in Virginia but have lived more than half of my life in the North too. I guess you could say I'm kind of schizophrenic, but it helps me to see the war from both sides, which helps my writing.
As for relics, I have a pretty sizable collection of relics and souvenirs, mostly Minie balls and the like--including a box of them that an old codger from Richmond gave me back when I used to visit there with my father--although I have absolutely nothing compared to one fellow I know here in rural Michigan who has even gotten writeups in newspapers because of how amazing his collection is, which actually takes up a whole floor of his house. That's not even counting all the books and paintings he has too. I think I have like 100 books on the Civil War, but I would like to get more. I think it is great how people like you all preserve our past in a day and age when people care more about fashions and sports and the like, but I suppose that's true of every generation. Anyway, I work at a small college tutoring students in English and social studies, especially history, and am pleased to see how often I get to tell them about the Revolution and the Civil War. I wish I could do more. Keep up the good work, all of you.
