If anyone is still out looking for the free unedited copy of Michael Burlingame’s Abraham Lincoln: A Life, the link has bee updated. The first volume can be downloaded here. Happy reading to everyone who has not yet checked out this work. Also on that page, you can learn more about an offer on the edited two-volume published version, which is quite large, but worth it.

I would like to welcome fellow graduate student, Army veteran, and Civil War reenactor Stuart Lawrence to the writing staff. I am sure that he will add many interesting posts to the blog and will be a wealth of experience on reenacting and other topics.

Blog Talk Radio will be interviewing Robert Hicks, author of The Widow of the South and the brand new book A Separate Country, which we gave away copies of last week. The interview will be at 12:30 ET. More can be found at:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/grandcentralpub/2009/09/23/Live-Interview-with-Robert-Hicks-author-of-A-SEPARATE-COUNTRY-and-WIDOW-OF-THE-SOUTH. I hope many of you will check it out.

Congratulations to the winners of the contest held this last week. To those who did not win, I want to thank you for entering and for visiting. It was a hard choice, but the following persons won a copy of Robert Hicks A Separate Country:

Sherry Gibbs–AL

Karen Haney–FL

Ed Norris

Andrea Valdes–NY

Gary Van Ess–WI

Congratulations again, and, according to Miriam Parker, you should receive your copy in about two weeks.

Midnight has now come and the giveaway has now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted via either comment or contacting me through the Contact CWH page. I will examine the entries later today and will contact the winners later today to let them know. Again, thank you everyone for stopping by this last week and for those entering the contest. I hope to hold more giveaways in the future, so if you represent a publisher and would like some free publicity and exposure for your products, please let me know if you offer giveaways for bloggers.

Okay folks, I have a special offer to make, courtesy of Miriam Parker, Associate Director, Online Marketing at Hachette Book Group. I would like to offer five copies of Robert Hicks’ new book A Separate Country (Hicks also wrote The Widow of the South). This giveaway is being held in conjunction with Book Blogger Appreciation Week. To enter and be considered for a copy, please either comment or use the Contact CWH page, provide your real name and a valid email, and comment on the following:

Excluding James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom (clearly a hard-hitting work), what do you feel has been the most significant historical book on the Civil War to be published in the last twenty-five (25) years and why?

How long should your comment be? I would prefer those interested to answer the question in a good paragraph, with multiple paragraphs being good too. There is no right answer, as I merely want your thoughts on the question backed up by intelligent thought, as I know you are all intelligent people reading this site. Basically, convince this historian why the book you chose was the most significant, drawing upon the book itself and the career of the author, if needed. I will explain that I excluded McPherson because he is a giant of the field and his work would be on many lists and I would like to see what other possibilities you will think of.

Also, please answer this question with just a title: What is your favorite fiction book on the Civil War? Again, no right answer.

I will leave the contest open until midnight of Monday, September 21, so please be sure to enter. I will examine all entries and will choose what I feel are the five best submissions and email the winners to request appropriate contact information for Miriam to send the copy to. Further, the five winners and a couple of honorable mentions will be posted and the submitters will be given the opportunity to join the writing staff of the site. I hope you will all enter the contest and wish luck to everyone. Thank you to Miriam Parker and Hachette Book Group for making this opportunity available.

Update: I forgot to mention that residents of the US and Canada are the only ones eligible, due to the limitations of where Miriam Parker can send the books. My apologies to those outside the US and Canada.

You may be wondering why I would devote a post to the passing of Patrick Swayze, which occurred today. Well, if you follow Civil War television shows, you may remember a young(er) Swayze portraying Orry Main in the landmark miniseries North and South. Orry was a southerner, from a planter family, who befriended George Hazard, the son of a wealthy industrial Northern family. The series chronicled the journey of the men from West Point, through the Mexican War, and both men’s service on either side of the war, with the two reuniting at war’s end. With that show, Swayze earned a place in the larger genre of Civil War film and television. Swayze was 57 years old and had been battling pancreatic cancer for almost two years. Rest in peace Patrick Swayze.

I wanted to let you all know that BBAW is going on this week (more info can be found via the BBAW link in the sidebar). I am planning to post a review (if possible, two) for the week and may be (I have to hear back from a contact at the publisher again) offering a giveaway towards the middle of the week for a few copies of Robert Hicks’ A Separate Country, which is based around the life of John Bell Hood. I will let you know more about this possibility tomorrow. I hope you all have a great week.

Alas, we did not make the shortlist for this category for Book Blogger Appreciation Week, but I want to encourage all readers who like this site to vote for our friends over at TOCWOC-A Civil War Blog for Best History/Historical Fiction Blog for BBAW 2009. Brett and his crew, which occassionally includes me, but very rarely, do a great job with the site. They discuss a myriad of topics, including gaming, as well as reviewing numerous books. So, show your support for a fellow CW blogger and vote for TOCWOC.

I hope you all have had a great summer and, for those of you who are pursuing study or working at an educational institution, I hope this year will be a good one. I wanted to briefly post that I set up a new blog to cover my journey through my Ph.D. program. I decided to keep it separate from this blog because much of the content is unrelated to the Civil War. However, I will cross-post some things here from time to time. I invite you all to check out Doctoral Bliss and learn about the fun times as well as harder times that go with being a Ph.D. student. Rest assured, I will not neglect this blog and will have a couple reviews coming up, as well as Book Blogger Appreciation Week.