Of Dust Jackets and Acknowledgements

In this post I wrote about the first appearance of Bull Runnings – and me – in a book, The New Civil War Handbook.  Well, like a zit on prom night, I’ve popped up again.  In the first case, I expected it.  I wrote a blurb for Brad Gottfried’s The Maps of First Bull Run that appears on the back of the dust jacket:

“Brad Gottfried’s The Maps of First Bull Run is filled with full-page maps and accompanying facing text that will help make sense of a confusing series of events for Bull Run/Manassas neophytes and old hands alike.  I highly recommend it.” – Harry Smeltzer, host of the Civil War blog Bull Runnings (www.bullrunnings.wordpress.com)

Inside, Brad gave wrote this gracious acknowledgement:

I was blessed to work with three experts: James Burgess, Museum Specialist at the Manassas National Battlefield Park, James Morgan, author of A Little Short of Boats: The Fights at Ball’s Bluff and Edwards Ferry, and Harry Smeltzer, whose website “Bull Runnings”  contains a wealth of information on everything related to First Bull Run.  If you haven’t visited it, I highly recommend you do so: http://www.bullrunnings.wordpress.com/.  Each reviewed the manuscript for accuracy and provided many useful suggestions, corrected embarrassing mistakes, and pondered a host of questions raised by the sources.  Any errors that remain are mine and mine alone.

I’ll have more thoughts on my experience as a manuscript reviewer in a later post.

The othe day I got an email from my friend Mike Pellegrini who informed me that the Bull Runnings and I extended our fifteen minutes on the inside rear flap of the dust jacket of J. D. Petruzzi’s and Steve Stanley’s The Complete Gettysburg Guide.  Savas Beatie uses this area to promote related publications, and my Maps blurb – shortened to “I highly recommend it”, but again listing the site address – appears there.  This was a complete surprise, and prompted me to run out to Barnes & Noble and get the book (I cashed in coupons and gift cards and got it for $4!).

If any of you are visiting here as a result of the above, welcome!  Be sure to visit the “About Me” page and read the notifications at the top of the marginal column to the right.  Check out the Orders of Battle and the Bull Run Resources, and search the articles and resources via the categories, tags, and search box also to the right.