Civil War
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Franklin – The Unheard Death Knell

November 30th will see the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Franklin, fought in Middle Tennessee towards the end of the last full year of the American Civil War. As Franklin was a central part of my inspiration, I couldn’t let it pass unmentioned. Sam Watkins, a private in the 1st Tennessee, and fighting only Continue reading
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Deja Vu All Over Again

I’m reading Whirligig and loving it! In fact, I plan to read my whole Shire’s Union trilogy back-to-back. How conceited is Buxton, you might be thinking, to read his own work and trumpet about it. But I’ve never understood those writers or actors who cringe at the idea of enjoying their own work. To be honest, I think most Continue reading
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Tigers in Franklin

I couldn’t say how many Civil War regiments there were. It’s probably into the thousands, and I could have picked any one of them. So why did I plump for the 125th Ohio, Opdycke’s Tigers as they came to be known, as a home for my fictitious Private Shire? And how then did their glorious story Continue reading
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Tigers in Blue – Closing the Trilogy

On my laptop, the 27th of June, 2013, shows as the last edited date on the original draft of the first chapter of the Shire’s Union trilogy. Putting pen to paper (or more likely pencil to notebook) will have preceded typing the words into Word, so the effort will have started long before then. I couldn’t Continue reading
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Back with the Tigers

The stop wasn’t on my itinerary, but I find my way here nonetheless. It’s four years since I was in America and eight years since I was at Chickamauga in the very north of Georgia, just across the Tennessee line from Chattanooga. I’ve finally made it out to check details for my third book, Tigers in Continue reading