Chickamauga

I've been rereading Glenn Tucker's "Chickamauga: Bloody Battle in the West" for research this past week. Its been awhile since I've read it and this past week has made me realize again how nice a read it is. Oh sure it has its errors and sometimes the order of things is a little odd, but Tucker was a good writer.

Next up I'll read Peter Cozzens' "This Terrible Sound" to flesh out the details and use that as my source material. I read Tucker just to refresh my mind about the flow of the battle. I'll use Cozzens for the meat. Cozzens' book is a good read too, I've read his four western theater battle books and enjoyed them all.

I also have the five Blue & Gray magazines that were recently done on this campaign handy. And then I'll use the new "Maps of Chickamauga" by David Powell to pinpoint any loose details. I noticed that Steven Woodworth has edited a volume of Chickamauga essays that is coming out at the end of April. So hopefully I'll be able to get a copy of that soon too to get another perspective. Truthfully we have a bunch of Chickamauga related literature available right now. Things are looking up.

Then I can really get working on my own Chickamauga project. Hopefully I'll be able to make it as readable as Tucker but have all the facts right too. Luckily I'm not trying to write a whole new battle history, just a smaller project, I don't have the time (or motivation) for that.