Hi Bernard, After reading some of the Starbuck Chronicles (I’ve read them all now)I was prompted to take the chance whilst working in the US to take a trip to the civil war battlefields. So a road trip that took me from New Jersey to Richmond Va. was planned and excecuted. I visited Gaines Mill, and Bull Run amongst others. As an ex-soldier and knowing the power of modern weapons I was horrified by the compact size of the combat area. Bull Run because of it’s openness apart from a small reverse slope in the area of Jackson’s men, also at the edges of the battlefield and a little dead ground in the middle. Given the tactics were virtually Napoleonic but the weapons were virtually first world war. It sent me cold. Gaines Mill was another horror. A narrow, steep sided wooded valley with a boggy stream at the bottom. When cresting the scarp of the valley on the Union side, which took a few short minutes, there were gun batteries sited less than 100 metres from that lip. Standing by them it made me realise that the only thing saving the Confederate troops from wholesale slaughter as they advanced was the fact that they were so close on the heels of the Union infantry. The gunners had no target save their own men. I cannot imagine the scenes in that valley. The only thing keeping the Confederates alive must have been the thick palls of smoke from the powder used in the rifled muskets. Rapid movement across the stream would have been near impossible. I thank you for giving me the impetus to go and look at these places and for giving me the pictures in my minds eye to superimpose over the scenery there. Sadly my follow up plans to go to Antietam and Gettysburg were thwarted by the pressures of work and I had to leave before I could drive down and look over them. But for anyone reading this who gets the chance. The American people have gone to great lenghs to preserve the battlefields and provide information scattered about them on marked walks to explain what happened at these places. There are also some Union and Confederate batteries in place to give the visitor a feel for the scale of the area. As well as the impossibly short distances (to a modern soldier) that they fought over. Stephen Navesey