As I finished up David F. Cross’ excellent book A Melancholy Affair at the Weldon Railroad: The Vermont Brigade, June 23, 1864 today, I do what I always do with any non-fiction book: read through the notes and bibliography sections in the back and look for more sources to read. It occurred to me that I ought to catalog some of the sources used in Siege of Petersburg books. The object will be two-fold:
- To note for myself where to do further research, especially with the explosion of Civil War books at Google Books, Internet Archive, and other pages featuring out of copyright materials. This is a way for me to “store” interesting items and come back to them for detailed examination later. Harry Smeltzer does a good job at Bull Runnings of telling readers what he is working on and why he posts what he does. I want to do more of that here at The Siege of Petersburg Online: Beyond the Crater.
- To allow you, the Siege of Petersburg student, the opportunity to explore sometimes obscure sources on your own. I’m a mostly one man operation here, so by noting interesting sources, many of which are freely available online and which I’ll link directly to when possible, I can point those interested in the operations around Petersburg and Richmond to places they may not know exist. I’d love to hear from anyone who reads through these sources and get your opinion on the material.
Look for BTC Sources posts to appear around the same time as book reviews of Siege of Petersburg books, with A Melancholy Affair serving as the guinea pig in this new experiment.