Get my ebooks for 50% off!

Over at Smashwords I'm participating in their great summer/winter sale. Whether you're sweltering in the summer of the Northern Hemisphere, or chilling out somewhere south of the Equator, it's always a good time to read an ebook. Through July 31, all my ebooks at Smashwords are 50% off. You can see an entire list on my Smashwords page.

The books include my Trench Raiders World War One action series, each now $1.50; older works such as the short story collection The Night the Nazis came to Dinner and the historical fantasy The Quintessence of Absence, both $1.50; and my Civil War horror novels A Fine Likeness and The River of Desperation.

Use the coupon code SSW50 at checkout to save 50%!

A new Civil War horror novel, and a bargain on an old one!

I've just released my latest Civil War horror novel, The River of Desperation. It's the sequel to A Fine Likeness. While the first book in the House Divided series stands on its own, The River of Desperation continued the story of the primeval struggle between Order and Chaos. A blurb is below.

In the waning days of the Civil War, a secret conflict still rages. . .
Lieutenant Allen Addison of the USS Essex is looking forward to the South's defeat so he can build the life he's always wanted. Love and a promising business await him in St. Louis, but he is swept up in a primeval war between the forces of Order and Chaos, a struggle he doesn't understand and can barely believe in. Soon he is fighting to keep a grip on his sanity as he tries to save St. Louis from destruction.
The long-awaited sequel to A Fine Likeness continues the story of two opposing forces that threaten to tear the world apart.
Length: 103,000 words (356 pages)

It's available as an ebook on Amazon, all Amazon affiliates, Smashwords, and soon to come to Barnes & Noble, the Apple store, and more.

In order to celebrate the release, I'm discounting A Fine Likeness. It's only 99 cents until April 26, the 150th anniversary of General Joe Johnston surrendering the Army of Tennessee. It will then be $2.99 until May 21, the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Jesse James, who makes an appearance in both of these books. A Fine Likeness is available on Amazon, all Amazon affiliates, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and almost everywhere else ebooks are sold.

Civil War Photo Friday: Crewmen from the USS Hunchback

These two jaunty fellows are from the crew of the USS Hunchback. Before the war this ship was a ferry in New York City. It was purchased by the U.S. government for military service and spent most of the war in the rivers and along the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina, seeing action numerous times and chalking up a good record of captured enemy vessels.

Like many gunboats converted from civilian use, the Hunchback had most of its guns on deck. They were simply regular artillery guns put on a ship.

The ship took some hits during the war but survived to see the end, at which point it went back to being a ferry in New York City until the early 1880s.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

The Missouri Civil War on classic television

While searching through old movies on YouTube the other day, I saw the name of a familiar battle of the Missouri Civil War. Decision at Wilson's Creek was a 25 minute TV movie from the popular show Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater. The show ran from 1956-1961 and many of the episodes were based on stories written by Zane Grey, one of the most famous Western writers.

This episode aired in 1957. I'm not sure if it's a Grey story or not. I can't find a tale by that name although of course it could have been retitled. The story opens with a Confederate officer (played by John Forsythe, the voice from Charlie's Angels) in the army of General Sterling Price resigning his commission and returning to his wife in Springfield. His army buddies deride him for a coward, but it soon turns out he's on a secret mission to find out Union troop strengths before the Battle of Wilson's Creek.

Other than the fictional character, the episode sticks fairly close to history. The main error was showing the Confederates in beautiful new uniforms, when in fact many of Price's men had no uniforms at all, or pretty ragged ones. The acting is fairly good, the writing so-so, and it's worth seeing as a historical curio and for a bit of old-time TV nostalgia.

Civil War Photo Friday: Winter Sentinel

This is for my friends in chilly North America. Stay warm!

Civil War Photo Friday: The tomb of the Emperor Maximilian

On last week's trip to Vienna I visited several sites of historical interest. One of them was the Imperial Crypt of the Hapsburg dynasty, including this grave for the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. He was the younger brother of Franz Joseph, the Hapsburg who would later be ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and draw his country into World War One.

As a younger brother, it seemed unlikely that Maximilian would ever sit on the throne, so when France extended its influence into Mexico in the 1860s and was looking for a European monarch, Maximilian was the man for the job. He took over as Emperor of Mexico in 1864. The United States didn't recognize him as the rightful ruler of Mexico, but was too busy with its own Civil War to do anything about it.

Maximilian was a liberal ruler, granting extra rights to the peasants and taking steps towards land reform, but that couldn't stop the revolutionaries who were fighting to make Mexico into something closer to a democracy. Once the Civil War was over in 1865, the U.S. government started arming the revolutionaries and Maximilian's position became precarious.

He got a bit of help from former Confederates who fled to Mexico after the war. This included many Missouri figures such as Confederate Generals Sterling Price and J.O. Shelby. They couldn't tip the scales, however, and when France pulled out its army in 1866 Maximilian's days were numbered. He was defeated and executed in 1867. He now lies back home in Vienna. Note that someone put a little Mexican sombrero on his tomb. He still has his admirers in Mexico.

The Apache way of war

"You want us to ride around your wagon circle making perfect targets while you shoot at us? I don't think so, paleface!"

In the movies we're told that the Apache were pretty dumb. As soon as our heroes, the settlers, put their wagons in a circle, the Apaches would ride around it, whopping and waving their guns over their heads, making perfect targets.

Not likely. The Apache defied the U.S. government for a century despite the Americans having greater numbers and better weapons. They did this by launching a classic guerrilla campaign.

The Apache offset their numerical inferiority by focusing their forces on isolated army detachments, giving them a localized superiority in numbers. They were also quick to adopt the latest weaponry, whether through illegal trading or by capturing guns from the enemy.

Their greatest ally was the land itself. Arizona and New Mexico, where the greatest number of Apache lived in the 19th century, is a rugged place, with scarce water and countless mountains and ravines in which to hide. The Apache knew the land well and could strike fast from unexpected directions and disappear into the wilderness.

Spirits of St. Louis Anthology out now!

Missouri publisher Rocking Horse Publishing has just come out with Spirits of St. Louis, an anthology of ghost stories set in Missouri.

It includes my story "After the Raid", an offshoot of my Civil War horror novel A Fine Likeness. For those who have read the novel, it follows the story of Helena, the daughter of the German photographer who gets killed by the bushwhacker band, and how she takes a terrible revenge. Of course a terrible revenge comes at a terrible price. . .

The story also stands on its own in case you haven't read the book (ahem).

Here's the back cover blurb.

Lonely Hitchhikers. Dirt Roads. Tired Soldiers. Strange Children. Mysterious Ladies. Dark Houses. What do they have in common? 

They all haunt the pages of this book.

From the Lemp Mansion to The Exorcist, from the 1904 World's Fair to Jefferson Barracks, the history of St. Louis, Missouri and its surrounding river towns is filled with stories of haunts and the supernatural.

Spirits of St. Louis: Missouri Ghost Stories is a collection of over thirty stories from authors across the globe, celebrating these ghosts, banshees, and shadows.

Do you believe in ghosts? If you believe or not, this collection of dark tales of the dead and disturbed is sure to keep you awake at night. Lock the doors, turn down the lights, and prepare to be terrified.

Civil War Photo Friday: Union troops participate in National Novel Writing Month!

Well, it's here. I and thousands of other writers around the world are hunched over our computers or notebooks writing the first chapters of our books. We need to get through 50,000 words to be a National Novel Writing Month winner. I'm planning on winning.

The Library of Congress says these are men from the Army of the Potomac writing letters to friends and family. Actually this is the only known image of the first National Novel Writing Month, which took place in 1861. The war stopped for the entire month of November while men on both sides sharpened their pencils and wrote novels for the folks back home. You can see them all hard at work here, except for the fellow in front who is sewing his shirt. He had been writing so hard the sleeve wore out!

. . .or not. :-)

All I'm going to do today is focus on my novel and write, write, write! I wrote this blog post on Wednesday just to clear the decks. :-)

Helping out with National Novel Writing Month

I've started a thread on the National Novel Writing Month website for writing a Civil War novel during NaNoWriMo.

If you're writing about the American Civil War, I'll be happy to answer your questions if I can. I've written two books about the Civil War for Osprey Publishing and numerous magazine articles for magazines such as Missouri Life and America's Civil War. I also have a novel set in Civil War Missouri titled A Fine Likeness.

My research focus is on the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and guerrilla warfare. I'll try to answer any questions posed to me, however. I've already had a couple of good ones. Please don't ask questions that can easily be researched online, though. I'm going to be a wee bit busy this month!


Image of bombardment of Fort Sumter courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Civil War Photo Friday: Private Simeon J. Crews, 7th Texas Cavalry

This fearsome fellow is Private Simeon J. Crews of Co. F, 7th Texas Cavalry Regiment. He's carrying a revolver and a cavalry saber that he's cut down for some reason, making it more of a stabbing than slashing weapon.

The 7th Cavalry saw plenty of action, going with General Sibley on his ill-fated expedition into New Mexico and later fighting in Texas and Louisiana.

I can't get over this guy's weapon! It reminds me of another Confederate Texan I've featured here and some of the medieval weapons used in the Civil War. I would definitely try to shoot this guy before he got in close.


Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Finished my next novel!

Whew! I just finished the sequel to A Fine Likeness, tentatively called The River of Despair and the next in the House Divided series of Civil War horror novels. While A Fine Likeness is a standalone novel, I wanted to explore the world a bit more.

The River of Despair came in at 107,000 words, 12,000 more than the first book. It will probably get trimmed some, and will be off to beta readers soon. I have to hurry, though, because next Friday is the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, when I change my tune and start writing a post-apocalyptic novel called Radio Hope.

Oh, and Jack Badelaire over at the Post-Modern Pulp blog just gave A Fine Likeness a nice review. My favorite part is when he says "I think the only weakness of A Fine Likeness, if there is one, is that I'd be hard-pressed to pin this book down in any sense of a traditional genre. I don't really consider it traditional horror, but the supernatural elements definitely take it out of the realm of historical fiction. I think the author was actually very smart in independently publishing this book, because I can't imagine a traditional publishing house attempting to market this book."

That's exactly what several publishers said in their rejection slips!

Civil War Photo Friday: John Wilson Vermillion, CSA

This is John Wilson Vermillion of Virginia, long thought to be Texas Jack Vermillion, a supporter of Wyatt Earp during the Tombstone fights. Actually that was a different man, as is thoroughly proven in an excellent new book I reviewed here.

While John Wilson Vermillion wasn't the famous Western gunslinger, he still had an interesting life. Here he is posing for a photo during his time serving in the Confederate army. He enlisted on August 12, 1861 in the 5th Battalion of Tennessee cavalry. He spent the war mostly in Tennessee and Kentucky and saw a great deal of combat. His service records are incomplete, but we know he was sent home at least once after being wounded.

Here he is with a cavalry saber and a rather unimpressive little pistol. This photo was probably taken when he enlisted. Men would often have their photos taken to mark that important event, and often posed with weapons supplied by the studio. So while he certainly carried a saber during the war, that little popgun may have been a studo prop!

On the other hand, many soldiers brought weapons and other equipment from home. Vermillion's war records show he was paid extra because he brought his own horse, so maybe he carried that pistol as a backup weapon to the saber, pistol, and possibly carbine that the army issued him.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

Broke the 100,000 word mark on my next novel!

Yesterday I broke the 100,000 word mark on my next Civil War horror novel, tentatively titled The River of Despair. I think I have about 5,000 more words to go and I hope to be done by the end of the week. I got a real kick in the pants by a crit partner. Over beers one evening we agreed to get our books to each other by the end of the month. He's already given me his so I need to get going!

The book is sort of a sequel to A Fine Likeness but can stand on its own. One of the protagonists is Allen Addison, the son of Richard Addison, who was one of the protagonists in A Fine Likeness. Allen is Richard’s only surviving son, yet is generally ignored by his father. Several characters from the first book including Jimmy and Rufus also appear in this volume. Much of the action takes place on the USS Essex, shown here.

Book Review: The Story of Texas Jack Vermillion

When writing my book Tombstone - Wyatt Earp, the O.K. Corral, and the Vendetta Ride 1881-82, I sadly didn't have much room for some of Wyatt's colorful friends like Turkey Creek Jack Johnson and Texas Jack Vermillion. I only had 25,000 words to play with!

Luckily Australian researcher Peter Brand has been hard at work researching the lives of these lesser-known Vendetta Riders and has come out with a great book on Texas Jack Vermillion. For many years it was thought that this little-known friend of Wyatt Earp was Confederate veteran John Wilson Vermillion. Brand proves conclusively that the real "Texas Jack" was John Oberland Vermillion, a Union veteran. Brand goes into detail about both men's lives so you're really getting two biographies here.

Of course Texas Jack is the focus and he's an interesting character. He ran away from home in 1864 to join the Union army, serving in the 122nd Ohio Infantry. He saw action in some of the toughest battles of the Overland Campaign such as the Battle of the Wilderness and Cold Harbor and was left traumatized by his wartime experience, unable to speak above a whisper for two years.

After the war he got restless and headed west. Like many people seeking to reinvent themselves, Vermillion left his relatives and never wrote home. He worked as a carpenter in various spots and also earned a reputation as a gunman. At some point he earned the nickname "Shoot-your-eye-out" Vermillion.

In Tombstone he was squarly on the side of the law and order Earp faction, but he did his share of nefarious deeds as well, such as hooking up with the famous gang of conmen run by “Soapy” Smith. All these coming and going are hard to document because Vermillion occasionally used aliases. Even as careful a researcher as Brand has to admit that he simply doesn't know where Vemillion was or what he was doing for large periods of his life.

What we do know, however, is fascinating, and Brand plugs in the gaps with details about Tombstone, the Arizona War, and Soapy Smith. While the book's subject may seem obscure and only of interest to specialists, Brand tells some fascinating tales that anyone interested in the Old West will enjoy.

My only complaint with this seemingly self-published volume is its poor distribution. I had to order direct from the author's American representative. These days it's quite easy to get onto all major online outlets by simply uploading your book to Amazon and Smashword's Premium Catalog. I hope Mr. Brand does this with this and any future books. I think he'll get the wider readership he deserves.

Civil War Photo Friday: Prisoner Exchange

This image shows non-commissioned officers from the 19th Iowa Infantry. They were recently prisoners at Camp Ford, Texas, before being exchanged and arriving at Union-occupied New Orleans. This shot was taken at their arrival back on friendly territory and shows their mixture of relief and exhaustion.

For much of the war, prisoner exchanges were common. A group of prisoners would be traded for a like number of prisoners from the other side. Sometimes prisoners wouldn't even see the inside of a jail. They'd be "paroled" on the spot wherever they'd been captured if they took an oath not to fight until exchanged. They would then return home and await a notice from their commanding officer that they had been exchanged and should return to duty.

The exchange program mostly broke down a few times during the war due to mutual mistrust. General Grant was always wary of exchanges. He had launched a war of attrition against the South and every prisoner exchanged meant one more soldier for the rebellion, he decided against further exchanges. While this led to horrible overcrowding of southern prisons such as Andersonville, it did bleed the South of men.

Image courtesy Library of Congress.

Like the new background?

I've decided to change the blog a bit. You may not have noticed that I widened the center a tad to make for easier reading and larger photos. I've also added my Twitter feed on the righthand column. The biggest change, of course, is that I've replaced the templates bookshelf background with a photo of Civil War soldiers shooting down a pterodactyl!

I've written a few posts on the mythological Thunderbird and the various soldiers and frontiersmen who claimed to have bagged one. My hard drive contains a small collection of these photos and I might make a tiled background of them when I get the time. I certainly would have to include this charming photo of a Globster!

The end is in sight for my next Civil War horror novel!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been forging ahead with the sequel to A Fine Likeness. I had more than 60% done, had the ending written, but didn't know how to get there. It was coming in little 1000-word bursts. This is different than my usual method which is to have the entire story arc in my head and I'm really only filling in details.

Now I'm happy to say I know exactly where I'm going. That last span of the story arc is in place in my head and cone again my writing is essentially filling in the little blank spots, like that crusty old riverboat captain that makes a certain scene but didn't exist until my fingertips surprised my mind by putting him on the page.

So I'm hoping to get this sucker done by the end of this week. We shall see!

Forging ahead with my next Civil War novel

As I've mentioned before, I've been working on a sequel to my Civil War horror novel A Fine Likeness. I took a hiatus from writing it for a while because I was a stuck. I had written the first 60% or so, knew the ending, but didn't have the bit in between.

That's strange for me. Usually I have the whole story arc in my head from the start and the writing process is just filling in the details. This time, the penultimate section really had be stuck and I took a break to do various other projects, including a spinoff short story that will be published later this month.

Now I'm back to writing the novel. I still don't know quite how I'm going to get to where I'm going, but each scene has been coming to me in chunks of about 1,000 words or so. It's also becoming apparant that this novel will be longer than I anticipated. Oh well. A story has to be as long as it takes to tell. It's good to be working on this again!

Now if I could only think of a title. . .

Civil War veterans invade Canada!

Courtesy Canadian Military Heritage

If I wrote this up as a novel, readers would complain that it was unbelievable, yet this actually happened.

In 1866, the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States was determined to free Ireland from British rule. Many were battle-hardened veterans from both the Union and Confederate armies and they hit upon a daring plan--capture Canada and use it as a bargaining chip with England.

On June 1, 1866, barely a year after the end of the Civil War, an army of about 1200 Fenians crossed the Niagara River. The Canadians reacted quickly and rushed some 850 militiamen to the area, including many University of Toronto students who got to skip class. None of the Canadians had ever been in a battle and only half had ever practiced with live ammunition.

The two sides met near the village of Ridgeway, Ontario. While the Canadians were outnumbered, they only faced the Fenian advance guard, which was roughly equal to their numbers.

At first all went well for the Canadians. They pushed back the Fenian skirmishers and engaged the main line. The Canadians drove them back for about an hour, when suddenly all went wrong. A few Fenian horsemen appeared, and fearing a cavalry charge the Canadian commander ordered his men to form a square. When he saw no such charge was imminent, he ordered his men to reform a line. This put the main body too close to the Canadian skirmish line and he ordered the main line to withdraw.

Other Canadian units saw this rearward action and assumed their comrades were retreating. They withdrew, and the Canadians' inexperience turned a rearrangement of the line into a general retreat. The veteran Fenians charged and turned the retreat into a rout.

The Canadians lost 7 killed and 37 wounded. Several more died of their wounds later. The Fenians had 6 killed and 10 wounded. While the Fenians carried the day, they realized the stiff resistance they'd met guaranteed more battles to come. Canada wouldn't be a pushover and their relatively small numbers would spell defeat in the long run. The Fenians slipped back into the United States. Many deserted and headed home while the leaders and about 850 men surrendered to U.S. forces.

You can read some first-hand accounts of the battle at the Queen's Own Rifles website, and blogger buddy and Canadian army chaplain "Mad Padre" recently refought the Battle of Ridgeway as a wargame.