ADDING VALUE TO YOUR CIVIL WAR CAMPAIGN/BATTLE HISTORY, GENERAL POSTSCRIPT

               There is another way to add value to your Civil War battle/campaign history that I have not yet mentioned because I did not employ it in my book.  It would be to restrict the subject to the point where you could research it exhaustively.  For example, it would have been possible to write a book about Second Deep Bottom, or Globe Tavern, or Second Reams Station alone.  It would have been possible to focus even more narrowly and write about the action of August 14, 1864, or August 16, 1864, or even August 18, 1864, at Second Deep Bottom; the action of August 18, 1864, or August 19, 1864, or August 21, 1864, at Globe Tavern; or the fight by moonlight of August 23, 1864.  David Faris Cross employed this tactic when he wrote A Melancholy Affair at the Weldon Railroad: The Vermont Brigade, June 23, 1864.  Dr. Cross did an in-depth study of the background to, events of, and aftermath of the Vermont Brigade’s fight near Globe Tavern on June 23, 1864.  Author A. Wilson Greene, then of Pamplin Historical Park, called Dr. Cross’s book “among the ten best books ever written about the Petersburg Campaign.”