About the book:

The first edition of the book came out in 2007.  The maps were in black and white and there were about 140 of them with accompanying text.  The book sold for $39.99 and ran 363 pages.  Subsequently, my publisher, Ted Savas, was able to find a company overseas that could print the maps in color.  The price remained the same, but the book became so much better.  Because of the coated pages, the book is very heavy.  Unfortunately, the hardback/color version is out of print– Ted is looking to reprint it in 2021. I have a copy I could sell for $55.

The background story:

This was the first book in a series that I hope will span every campaign in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War.  It was also a book that was almost never published.  There were many problems.  First, I couldn’t find a publisher.  Nobody could understand the concept and passed on it, until I contacted Ted Savas.  He immediately got it and I got to work.  The second problem was finding a cartographer.  I contacted a prominent one and told him that he would be the co-author and share all royalties, etc.  He agreed, and I sent him roughed out sketched and he would turn them into finished maps.  Things turned sour when I asked him to add vegetation features, such as cornfields and hayfields.  He promptly quit, probably realizing that this was a bigger project than he had anticipated.  I approached another prominent cartographer, but we had creative difference and I terminated the relationship.

I realized that the only way this book could or would be published was if I wrote the text AND prepared the maps.  My future wife showed me how to create them and the rest is history.  The maps are not fancy and I am not trying to produce beauty as much as illustrate what happened during this fateful campaign.

I know realize that the only way to produce these books is by writing the text and preparing the maps.  I work on the two simultaneously and they inform each other.  There have been many instances where first-hand accounts become unreliable, when I try to map the information.

I get so much satisfaction from writing these books and I learn so much.  It is definitely a journey.