Top Posts of 2024

Let’s take a moment to review 2024 on Dan Masters’ CivilWar Chronicles.

     

2024 marked another very busy year with 157 new blog posts,up from 114 last year. The year also saw the publication of two new books, Echoesof Battle Volume 2 and my new campaign study Hell by the Acre: ANarrative History of the Stones River Campaign.

     

The blog is currently at 955 posts and is fast approaching1,000 post mark; will probably reach that sometime this spring. Blog trafficcontinues at a very impressive pace for which I am very grateful.

     

The blog’s focus remains centered on telling the story of thecommon soldier in the Civil War, North and South. Over the past year, I devotedmore page space to telling some of the stories of our Civil War veterans whoreceived the Medal of Honor but the western theater remains my prime focus. I’mexcited to share new discoveries with you. The process of research and studyremains a treasured part of my day and I thank all of you for enjoying it alongwith me.

     

To help ring in 2025, let’s revisit the top 20 posts of 2024:

What a great ride in 2024! Between publishing two new books and over 150 blog posts, it certainly was a prolific year if nothing else. Here, I am visiting one of my favorite spots, the Local History Room at Way Public Library in my hometown of Perrysburg, Ohio. Nearly a quarter century ago, my first steps of researching the battle of Stones River (which resulted in the book I'm holding) began while sifting through the files and old copies of the Perrysburg Journal newspaper on the microfilm machines behind me. As much as I enjoy the convenience of online research, there are few things that compete with the joy of discovering a tangible connection with our nation's past, so much of which resides quietly in small town libraries and county historical societies. 

Top 10

1. The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

2. Charging Battery Robinett: An Alabama Soldier Recalls the Vicious Fighting at Corinth 

3. Globules of Adipose Pomposity: Top 11 Worst Buckeye Colonels of the Civil War

4. A Fight for Corn: Eight Medals of Honor Awarded at Nolensville

5. Knapsack Compression: Wilbur Hinman Recalls the first step of becoming a veteran

6. Nearing the Shores of Eternity: A Chaplain Among the Dying of Antietam

7. The Legend of Leatherbreeches: Hubert Dilger in the Atlanta Campaign

8. Among the Hoosier Greenhorns at Munfordville

9. An Interview with Forrest in May 1864

10. Carrying Jackson off the Field at Chancellorsville

One of the more exciting personal discoveries for me came early in the year when a distant relative shared with me a collection of old family photos including the above CDV of my great-great-great grandfather Lewis Franklin Stratton with his wife (my ggg-grandma) Julia Ann Starr. Grandpa Lew served for about a year in Co. F of the 140th Indiana Volunteer Infantry at the end of the war, seeing action both in the Battle of the Cedars in December 1864 and the taking for Fort Anderson, North Carolina in February 1865. The couple married in late 1865 and two years later had their second born, Mary Jane Stratton, who would become my great-great grandmother on my father's side. 

11. The Golden Moment was Gone: The Doomed Assault on the Dead Angle at Kennesaw

12. I Want to See a Battle: A Hoosier at Shiloh 

13. We Shall Conquer of Die: Interview with Author Derrick Lindow

14. The Ground Seemed to Boil Under My Feet: Taking FortDonelson with the 7th Illinois

15. Life in the Hell Hole

16. Lost in the blaze, thunder, and frenzy of battle: With the Blythe’s at Shiloh

17. Reminders of the 4th Indiana Battery’s FightAlong the Wilkinson Pike

18. Winged at the Outset: Wilbur Hinman’s Experiences at Chickamauga

19. How Kenesaw Mountain Landis Got His Unusual Name

20. A Continuous Line of Fire: A Mississippian Recalls the Assault at Munfordville

In November 2024, my long-awaited study of the Stones River campaign entitled Hell by the Acre hit the bookshelves as is featured at Stones River National Battlefield. Have you picked up your copy yet? 

Personal Choice as Favorite Story of the Year:

Finding Uncle Fred in Kalkaska, Michigan