Over the years I’ve read most of your books and enjoyed all that I read.  Waterloo was especially illuminating – a beautiful book that explained well what happened.

Given the current Political Correctness are you going to be able to get vol. 5 of the Starbuck Chronicles published? Unfortunately the actual history is being buried in rhetoric.

I grew up in Philippi, now West Virginia. There was a very short battle that established McClellan’s reputation for using the railroad and kept Western Va in Union hands. My family was subject to Union artillery fire in the middle of the night in 1861. Through most of the occupation, townspeople kept their mouths shut and sat it out. Further East in the mountains there are stories of families who kept multiple colors hidden so they could change them according to who rode up to the house.

What is interesting is how the alliances from the conflict existed until very recently. My best friend has a great, great uncle that my great, great grandfather played cards with in the Pt. Lookout Md. Camp for Confederate prisoners of war. My great grandmother and her friends were alive when I was small. They did not associate with relatives that supported the Union.

Linda Proudfoot