New Outlets for New Book
I was notified by my publisher, Pelican Publishing, that my new nonfiction book, Horses in Gray, has been accepted and will be sold in several venues. This is very exciting, and is an extreme honor. The list is as follows:
1. One Eastern National site picked up the book, Parker Crossroads, TN
2. Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, TX
3. Rum Creek Sutler in Georgia
4. Museum and Library of Confederate History in Greenville, SC
5. United Daughters of the Confederacy in VA
6. Kent Plantation House in Louisiana
7. Books of the South on Birmingham, AL
8. Brice’s Crossroads Bookstore in Mississippi
I would like to express my sincere thanks to everyone who has decided to pick up my book! Thank you so much for your support.
If you know of anyone who would be interested in carrying the book, please let me know! I’m hoping to get it into more national parks, as well as more Civil War museums and the like.
Here is another exerpt from Horses in Gray. I hope you enjoy it!
As the war progressed, Southern cavalrymen found it more challenging to replace their mounts. In the summer of 1862, the Union army captured and cut off the great horse-breeding states of Kentucky, Missouri, parts of Tennessee, and western Virginia. This forced Gen. Robert E. Lee’s men to scour the South, where remounts became more and more scarce. There were plenty of mustangs in Texas, but most of them were too small for military service.17
Whereas Confederate infantrymen were paid eleven dollars per month, cavalrymen were paid forty cents per day, or thirteen dollars a month; the two extra dollars could be used to provide for their horses. The men were also given horseshoes when they were available. If a horse was killed in the line of duty, the government compensated the trooper for his loss. But if the horse was captured, disabled, or lost, the trooper was not paid anything. In either case, the cavalryman was required to replace the mount himself. This could be a difficult task, as by the end of 1863, horses in the South were selling for $2,000 to $3,000 each.18
While on furlough to find a horse, a trooper was considered to be on “horse detail.”19 Horseless soldiers were said to belong to Company Q, a nonexistent company composed “not only of good soldiers, but no-goods, malingerers, and inefficients as well.”20 Blackford wrote about a flaw of this arrangement: “We now felt the bad effects of our system of requiring the men to furnish their own horses. The most dashing trooper was the one whose horse was the most apt to be shot, and when this man was unable to remount himself, he had to go to the infantry service and was lost to the cavalry. Such a penalty for gallantry was terribly demoralizing.”21
When soldiers were riding Shanks’ Mare, it meant that they were on foot. This was the most common means of transportation used for getting home after the war. “You place your feet on the ground and move,” one Tennessean described. “Walk in the direction you are going. You are now riding Shanks’ Mare.”22
