Hannibal Howell Letters
These letters come from two sources: one, my cousin Lois Phelps Brown, who got them from her father shortly before his death. Two letters (the last two) from the Clara Bower Howell Redline (adopted daughter …
Tappan Howell Letters
Tappan Howell, Hattie’s uncle, was 19 years old when he was mortally wounded at The Battle of South Mountain in September 1862. He died two weeks later in a hospital in Washington, DC. South Mountain …
Research – it’s more than Google and Wikipedia.
I love Google and Wikipedia as much as the next guy, but if you are going to write historical fiction, you better be prepared to understand the facts and details from the era in which …
Surprising things you can learn from a map
I recently decided to look online for old maps of the Finger Lakes region of New York, the area where Hattie’s War is set. To my surprise, I stumbled on several maps that, on closer …
A family trip and a tattered cardboard box
Trip to Gettysburg I was sixteen years old in 1970 when our family visited Gettysburg National Military Park in southeastern Pennsylvania. During the four-hour drive, my mother mentioned a relative fought and died at Gettysburg. …