Well since my fellow civil War bloggers have been having fun with the Which American Civil War General are you? quiz, I'd figure I'd take it as

More on I'm a Nathan Bedford Forrest

I didn't know that Vice President Dick Cheney was a descendant of a Civil War soldier.  Good thing he great-grandfather fought on the Union side.  Can you imagine the controversy that would follow if he fought for the Confederacy and Chaney visited the battlefield?

Cheney drops in on Civil War battlefield in Kennesaw (AccessNorthGA)

KENNESAW - Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise two-hour visit to the Kennesaw Mountain National Battleground Park on Friday.

Arriving at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Cheney attended a reunion of the descendants of the 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. His great-grandfather, Capt. Samuel Fletcher Cheney, had fought with the 21st at the Battle of Kennesaw in June 1864.

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Interactive Virtual Book Signing™ will hold it's book signing on Saturday, July 21st at Noon Central Time.  This signing will feature:

• Elizabeth Brown Pryor will present Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters
• Bradley Gottfried will present The Maps of Gettysburg: An Atlas of the Gettysburg Campaign, June 3 - July 13, 1863

Both books will be available for purchase online or in person. To Order, Click Here.

For those not familiar with Virtual Book Signing™:

Virtual Book Signing™ provides the excitement of attending a booksigning, without having to leave your home. Sit on your couch in your pjs, sipping a margarita, and watch on the computer as your own book is signed. This is a true, "real time" book signing. You are here virtually, watching an event unfold with you as a participant. You can interact with the author via email, order a book and watch it signed online. In a few days your book will arrive at your doorstep.

Launched in November 2005, Virtual Book Signing™ has, so far, featured sixteen authors. Our inaugural web cast featured Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Our most recent events feature Thomas Craughwell on Stealing Lincoln's Body and William Harris discussing Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency. Michael Beschloss dropped by to talk about Presidential Courage. Previously, Gary Joiner and Timothy Smith joined us for a program on The War in the West, featuring the books Shiloh and Through the Howling Wilderness. Other shows have included Harold Holzer, Frank Williams, Richard Lawrence Miller, Douglas Wilson, Gabor Boritt, Tom Wheeler, Brian Dirck, Phillip Shaw Paludan, Edward Longacre and the legendary Ed Bearss. Please visit the Archive page for condensed versions of these web casts.

This new venture was introduced by Daniel Weinberg, an antiquarian book and autograph dealer, and proprietor of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago . “Traditionally, book signings mean leaving home and then waiting in line in order to meet an author for a few seconds to get a book signed,” says Weinberg. “ Virtual Book Signing™ permits you to attend an in-shop booksiging without leaving home. You see an author speak via a streaming web cast. Then you may place an order and see the book signed while you watch.”

State plans Civil War trails (Albany Herald On-line, GA)

[Georgia] bought more than 500 acres near Interstate 75 in Northwest Georgia in 2000 with plans to develop the site into a park commemorating the Battle of Resaca, the opening engagement of Union General William T. Sherman’s Atlanta campaign in 1864.
…
Only now, seven years after the purchase of Resaca, are Georgia lawmakers hoping to get the money flowing again. The 2008 budget adopted by the General Assembly last month includes $700,000 to begin developing Civil War trails and help state tourism officials start preparing for the upcoming 150th anniversary of the conflict.

Couple Raises Money to Preserve Civil War Spy's Estate (Preservation Online)

The suburban sprawl of Northern Virginia has swallowed up many historic houses in the last 20 years, but Dave and Win Meiselman aren't about let Merrybrook, their antebellum estate that once housed Civil War spy Laura Ratcliffe, become a strip mall.

Preservation Group Seeks To Shield East Coast Land (Washington Post)

The National Trust for Historic Preservation plans to declare a large swath of the East Coast's most historic land as among the most imperiled in the country because it could one day be crisscrossed by high-voltage power lines.

The area, which spans seven states, including Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia, will be on the group's list of the nation's 11 most endangered historical sites. This is the Washington-based group's 20th annual list, and it will be unveiled officially at the National Press Club this morning.

Battlefield park eyes 300 acres in Henrico (Richmond Times Dispatch, VA)

Richmond National Battlefield Park appears headed toward acquiring more than 300 historic acres in eastern Henrico County.

The Civil War Preservation Trust has bought the land at Glendale/Frayser's Farm battlefield at a price of about $4 million, Park Superintendent Cynthia MacLeod said yesterday. Park officials have made a proposal to Washington for acquiring that land, she said.

City panel recommends keeping cannons in Racine (Journal Times, WI)

The cannons that for at least 117 years complemented the soldier's monument at Monument Square might currently be out of sight, but they're not out of the minds of some Racine residents.

Responding to history and veterans' groups and calls of concern from members of the general public, the City Council's Finance and Personnel Committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend the council not authorize loaning the cannons to the city of Kenosha.

Kenosha officials had approached Racine about the possibility of displaying the cannons at the Civil War Museum of the Upper Midwest, now under construction on Kenosha's lakefront and expected to open next year.

I stumbled across this page today.  You can see a few more Civil War dioramas in Legos at http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/10409.

Last October I wrote about a new documentary about Gabor Borritt being produced (see: Budapest to Gettysburg). Jack Boriit, producer, director, photopgrapher, and Gabor' son, sent me an email to let me know about the upcoming release and a pre-premiere screening on Friday June 29th at the Majestic Theater in Gettysburg.  More information on the documentary can be found at: http://www.boritt.com.

There is a free pre-premiere screening on Friday, June 29, 2007 at 8:00 PM at Gettysburg's Majestic Theater.

To ensure seating please reserve your FREE tickets by calling the Majestic at (717) 337-8200.

Contact the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College at (717) 337-6590 with other questions.

Perryville ranks as one of my favorite battlefields.  Given who well preserved it is and the terrain of the land, it gives a really great understanding of Civil War battlefields.  It is good to see this acquisition.

Sleettown to become part of historic site (Kentucky.com)

A 96-acre tract of Boyle County land once used as an African-American settlement will become a part of the Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site.

The state Department of Parks recently bought the property, known as Sleettown, from private owners. The land once was used as a staging area for Confederate forces and was an African-American settlement after the Civil War until about 1931.

"We plan to use the property to tell the story of the Battle of Perryville as well as the history of Sleettown," state Parks Commissioner J.T. Miller said in a news release. The Battle of Perryville, in October 1862, was the largest Civil War battle in Kentucky.

The Civil War Preservation Trust provided a matching grant of $107,000 to help buy the property. The state's share of $324,000 came from a Transportation Enhancement grant, which can be used for preservation purposes. The total amount was used to buy the property, pay for an archaeological study, conduct a survey and for other costs.

The new property will help connect two separate sections of the 570-acre park and will allow for more use, including trails, interpretive signs and research. One home, thought to be the last remnant of Sleettown, and a cemetery remain on the Sleettown property.

National Archives July 7, 1863, three days after the Battle of Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg, President Abraham Lincoln penned this note to his General-in-Chief Henry Halleck expressing his belief that if Gen. George Meade could follow up his recent victory in Pennsylvania by defeating Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army the Civil War would be over.

Well the big Civil War news this week is the discovery of the original handwritten note by Abraham Lincoln to Gen. Henry W. Halleck directly after Gettysburg urging Meade to pursue Robert E. Lee's army.  Halleck then telegraphed the note to Meade.  Historians had already known the text of the telegram for years as it is part of the official war records.

Lincoln Urgent in Lost Letter to General (Washington Post)

On July 7, 1863, three days after Vicksburg's surrender and four days after Gettysburg, Lincoln took out a sheet of blue-lined paper and wrote to his general in chief, urging that the fleeing rebels be destroyed. If they were, Lincoln wrote, "the rebellion will be over."

But the Confederates escaped over the flooded river seven days later, the war went on for almost two more blood-soaked years, and Lincoln's six-line, handwritten note of optimism vanished into the crumbling files of history.

Yesterday, the National Archives announced that the long-lost note, complete with a misspelled word and Lincoln's neat schoolboy signature, had been found last month in the downtown stacks by an archivist doing research for a Discovery Channel documentary.

…

The note, on yellowed stationery and headed "War Department Washington City" was written to Gen. Henry W. Halleck. The besieged Confederate city of Vicksburg, Miss., had fallen July 4 to the forces of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had just been defeated at Gettysburg by union forces under Gen. George G. Meade.

,,,

 This story has gotten National news coverage as well as being picked up internationally as well.  Google News shows 289 news articles on this find.  Since it is not new news, what is the draw?  Is it just because it is the original note?  Is it because it a Lincoln letter?  Is Gettysburg part of the appeal?  If Meade had vigorously pursued Lee directly after Gettysburg, would the war possibly ended sooner?  Whatever the appeal, it makes for a good news story.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on May 5th, 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on May 30, 1868.

General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from his honor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.

It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.

By order of
JOHN A. LOGAN,
Commander-in-Chief
N.P. CHIPMAN,
Adjutant General
Official:
WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.

10 minutes of the The History Channel Civil War: A Nation Divided in action.  If you care…