John Banks Podcast

Last night I had the pleasure of being interviewed on friend John Banks’s podcast. Take a listen here – hope I don’t sound like too much of an idiot!

2nd Rhode Island Photos – High Res!

Friend and fellow blogger John Banks has acquired high resolution copies of the images of Rhode Island soldiers I posted here. These amazing images (including a smiling soldier (!) and those unique Rhode Island overall uniforms) are courtesy of Kate Wells in the Special Collections unit of the Providence (RI) Public Library. They were apparently taken by Matthew Brady or an assistant on July 17-18, 1861, near Centreville, VA, at “Bush Camp.” All are members of Company F – I’ll add captions later. Click on the image for the bigger version. Enjoy!

2nd Rhode Island Photos

John Banks has found some amazing photos of members of the 2nd Rhode Island before First Bull Run. These include great shots of the Rhode Islanders unique overall or night-shirt style uniforms.

The soldier identifications have been expanded on John’s site – visit it here. And here is a link to the Providence Public Library piece on the discovery of the photos.

Below are the photos. They are fantastic.

 

 

Preview: Banks, “Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers”

John Banks, fellow Pittsburgh area native and host of John Banks’ Civil War Blog, has published a new book with The History Press, titled Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers. Over the years John has pored over the records at NARA, Fold3, and elsewhere to flesh out a truckload of stories about Connecticut soldiers and regiments. He’s already collected a lot of them in Connecticut Yankees at Antietam, but in his new book he gives us more tidbits that don’t all have the Antietam tie-in. The 181 page narrative is packed with illustrations, including archival and modern-day photos by the author (one of the cool things about John’s research is that he regularly travels to where the stories take him). Chapters are broken down into Remembering, Brothers (there were at least 40 sets of Nutmeg brothers who died during the war), Heroes, Villains, Tragedies (the longest chapter), and Survivors. Notes, bibliography, and index are also included.

John has overcome his Mt. Lebanon HS and West Virginia University education and is a gifted writer. I think you can’t go too wrong with this one.