Wild West Photo Friday: Tumbleweed Snowmen!

Happy Holidays, pardner! These tumbleweed snowmen are celebrating Arizona's winter season, such as it is, in Tohono Chul Pk, Tucson

Photo by Chanel Wheeler.

Off to Tangier, see you later!

Today my wife and I are heading south to Tangier, Morocco, for five days. I've already scheduled a Wild West Photo Friday post for tomorrow, but that's the last you'll hear from me until later next week. This is a total vacation with just me and the honey. The kid is staying with his grandmother. No responsibilities, no work, and no computer. A total vacation!

Well, almost. I'll be taking notes and pictures for a Gadling miniseries. A travel writer never travels without a bit of work involved!

Happy New Year!


Photo courtesy Trent Strohm. My photos coming soon!

Merry Christmas!

For all those separated from their loved ones this Christmas. . .

The First Kansas Colored Volunteers gets its first book (sort of)

I've written here before about the First Kansas Colored Volunteers, a unit mostly comprised of runaway slaves who had the honor of being the first black regiment in the American army to see combat when they fought (and won) the Battle of Island Mound in Missouri on October 26, 1862.

They've never had a book written about them. I've been shopping around a proposal for several years now but keep getting told the subject isn't "commercially viable" and I should go to an academic press. Well, academic presses don't pay so I can't. It's ironic that writing for a living actually limits who you can write for.

Luckily Robert W. Lull has a day job as a history professor and could afford to write a book for the University of North Texas Press. His subject: the little-known commander of the First Kansas Colored Volunteers--James M. Williams.

The blurb says: "The military career of General James Monroe Williams spanned both the Civil War and the Indian Wars in the West, yet no biography has been published to date on his important accomplishments, until now.

"From his birth on the northern frontier, westward movement in the Great Migration, rush into the violence of antebellum Kansas Territory, Civil War commands in the Trans-Mississippi, and as a cavalry officer in the Indian Wars, Williams was involved in key moments of American history. Like many who make a difference, Williams was a leader of strong convictions, sometimes impatient with heavy-handed and sluggish authority.

"Building upon his political opinions and experience as a Jayhawker, Williams raised and commanded the ground-breaking 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment in 1862. His new regiment of black soldiers was the first such organization to engage Confederate troops, and the first to win. He enjoyed victories in Missouri, Indian Territory (Oklahoma), and Arkansas, but also fought in the abortive Red River Campaign and endured defeat and the massacre of his captured black troops at Poison Spring.

"In 1865, as a brigadier general, Williams led his troops in consolidating control of northern Arkansas. Williams played a key role in taking Indian Territory from Confederate forces, which denied routes of advance into Kansas and east into Arkansas. His 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment helped turn the tide of Southern successes in the Trans-Mississippi, establishing credibility of black soldiers in the heat of battle.

"Following the Civil War, Williams secured a commission in the Regular Army’s 8th Cavalry Regiment, serving in Arizona and New Mexico. His victories over Indians in Arizona won accolades for having “settled the Indian question in that part of Arizona.” He finally left the military in 1873, debilitated from five wounds received at the hands of Confederates and hostile Indians"

While this isn't the regimental history that I've been hoping for, it's a great leap in the right direction. I'll be sure to buy and review Civil War General and Indian Fighter James M. Williams: Leader of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry and the 8th U.S. Cavalry when it comes out next February.

How will the world end?

How will the world end?

Slowly.

Despite what the wide-eyed True Believers would like, the world is not going to end today or any other single day. No civilization has ended in a day. The real destruction of the world as we know it will come around a lot more slowly.

And that's going to make it a lot more painful.

This Choose Your Own Apocalypse blogfest came along at just the right time. While I'm busy with my next Civil War novel, I'm thinking of what I'll do next. One possibility is a series of loosely connected post-apocalyptic novellas. That got me to thinking how are world could fall apart.

First would come the Lean Years as the current worldwide economic meltdown worsens. This leads to various wars and civil unrest that stir the pot even more. Environmental degradation picks up pace and soon coastal areas are flooded by rising sea levels. This causes large-scale migration and that, compounded with a cash-strapped governments not being able to control the outbreak of diseases, leads to the Plague Years.

Now the world governments are really backed into a corner, and they do what they always do in such a situation--they start a war, actually The Wars, several major conflicts between groups of constantly shifting alliances. Thinks 17th century Europe with 21st century weapons. Not pretty. A few places will get nuked, biochemical weapons spread more disease, and the breakdown of civilization begins in earnest.

Then comes the World Revolution. This isn't one revolution but several. The people have had enough and a bewildering array of political and religious groups try to take over. The weakened governments fall after taking out large numbers of their own citizens. Countries fragment and the revolutionary groups end up with little patches of territory. Having widely different belief systems, they start fighting against one another, ushering in the Feudal Times.

But we're not done yet! In a world left with virtually no infrastructure or reliable long-distance trade, things like electricity and gasoline become rarities to be fought over. The new feudal states begin to collapse because of their own infighting, local revolutions, or simple starvation. A vastly depleted population is left living in fortified villages or scavenging the remains of the civilization they destroyed through their own ignorance.

And that leaves us at page one of my first book. . .

Now I just have to write it!

This photo of the Namibian ghost town Kolmanskop is courtesy Harald Süpfle via Wikimedia Commons. To learn more about this eerie ghost town and to see more photos, check out an article I did on Kolmanskop.

Civil War Photo Friday: "Jeff Davis and the South!"

Today on Civil War Photo Friday we get to meet Thomas Isaiah Booker. Here he is with a Colt Navy revolver, book, tin drum canteen, and sign reading "Jeff Davis and the South!" Thomas wanted to make his loyalties clear. Less clear is which unit he served in. According to the Library of Congress he was in either Co. D, 8th Louisiana Cavalry Regiment; Co. B, 28th Louisiana Infantry Regiment; or Co. B, 29th Louisiana Infantry Regiment.

I wonder what the book is? A Bible?


Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Choose my next adventure!

Now that my Iraq travel series is done, I'm thinking about where to go in 2013. Since I write up all my big trips for the travel blog Gadling, I've decided to ask my readers to pick my next destination! I've put up a poll. The main choices are Sudan, Lebanon, and Iran. You can also name your own location. So far Sudan has a slight lead, so you might be sending me to see the pyramids at Meroe.

What do you think? The poll closes December 31!


Image courtesy Sven-steffenarndt via Wikimedia Commons