I'm part of Book Fair at Brew Pub

The event is this Sunday, July 26, from 11 to 3 at the Common Roots Brewing Co., 62-58 Saratoga Ave., South Glens Falls -- which is by the Hudson River, across which in Glens Falls my wife Barbara and I lived for many years and raised our family.

This is in part a fund-raiser for the Rainbow Division Veterans Foundation, which is connected to the 42nd Infantry Division, an Army National Guard unit headquartered in Troy, NY.

I'm bringing all four of my books to sell, the first three Civil War-related ones at discount prices. And the new hardcover historical novel, The Detective and Dorothy Day, is only $20. Stop by, grab a bite and say hello.

@valenzapublishing

@commonrootsbrewing 

My Background Story of "The Detective and Dorothy Day" (with Juneteenth update)

I arrived uninvited at the Catholic Worker farm in Tivoli, NY, on March 19, 1974, one week after I turned 20 years old. At dinner there was plentiful meat -- which they good-naturedly told me not to get used to, because it was to mark the feast of St. Joseph. I stayed until late summer, then lived and worked in Manhattan through the winter, returning to Tivoli the following spring. I moved to Missouri the next winter (1975-6), and worked in a lumber yard. Then with three other people whom I'd met at Tivoli, we bought 40 acres of cheap woodland in the Ozarks. I was still clinging to the fantasy we were hippie peaceful revolutionaries. None of us or our descendants still lives on the property (but I think it's in good hands).

I also thought that way in Tivoli. It would have made more sense, given my actual skills and how my career would work out (mostly at newspapers), to have gotten involved with The Catholic Worker paper. But I did farm work instead, and was distracted with new friends and experiences, e.g. falling in love for the first time. Nor did I go to Mass, despite my Catholic upbringing, only returning to the church after I got married at age 30 (to someone I'd met the year before). 

The dedication of my 2026 novel The Detective and Dorothy Day, says: "For old friends from the Catholic Worker, living and dead. Most of whom knew Dorothy Day much better than I did." Dorothy was not at Tivoli a lot when I was there. Her daughter and grandchildren were in Vermont, and she herself lived mostly in New York City. When she was at the farm, I made no effort to hang out with her, thinking it would be a phony thing for me to do. I only recall one brief conversation, about selling out, a fictionalized version of which is in the novel.

It was not included in the book's first draft, written almost 40 years ago, and nor was Dorothy. That was a straight detective novel told in the first person and influenced by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, especially the latter. It was based on my four years as a reporter, labor organizer and leader at The Post-Star in Glens Falls, NY.

Much later, I wrote my first three published books, all focused on the American Civil War. Only one of these was a novel, The Last Circle of Ulysses Grant, which is written from the perspective of multiple historical characters, and is technically more sophisticated than the first-person narrative of The Detective and Dorothy Day.

I rewrote the detective story's 1987 draft, moving it back 12 years to add Dorothy, who gives it needed moral ballast. Among the things I cut were some but not all of the conversations about Grant and the Civil War. What stayed got amended and included in Dorothy's pacifist vision, which partly becomes the detective's. Grant, too, in his way, became a man of peace.

Update: The above was written June 17, and today, June 19, I get more reminders of America's lack of historical knowledge, as commemorators of the holiday keep insisting Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston on today's date, when in fact he got there two days earlier but issued his crucial order June 19th. My first book was a 2013 biography of Granger, and the publisher reasonably put quotes around Juneteenth in the subtitle because most people were unfamiliar with the word. In 2022, when my third Civil War-related book was published, I wrote an essay here about the holiday, to which I link below.

BOOKS BY BOB : Juneteenth as a Hopeful Symbol of National Unity

Grant the Writer

 

The image of Grant from the cover of my 2018 novel is derived from a famous photo of him on the porch of the cottage at Mount McGregor, a few weeks before his death. It was taken by an otherwise unidentified person named Howe, who apparently sold the rights to Mark Twain, publisher of Grant's Memoirs. Here it is below (aged into a brownish color): Grant, as you can see, is intently working on the manuscript of the book which Twain would publish. I think it was taken early in the morning, before Julia was up, as she would probably have preferred to see her beloved husband more properly dressed, in suit and top hat, as he appeared in most of his postwar photos including others taken at Mount McGregor. The earliness of the hour, along with the considerable weight loss Grant experienced as his health deteriorated, might also account for why he was so warmly dressed in summer. But the flap on the right side of his face was not so much as to protect against a gust of wind as to conceal the tumor which was rapidly killing him from throat cancer. Grant's book, his first, turned out to be a masterpiece. Not as long as originally planned, it left out his political career. But he got up to the end of the war, and wrote a conclusion.

This Saturday June 13 is Community Day up at the cottage, with various free family events "to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our great nation." I made arrangements to be a vendor selling my four books, but now that they've put me in the Visitor Center next to the gift store, I realize I can't be competing against that store and selling the two books of mine they have. So I'll just put one copy each of the Grant novel and Gordon Granger biography out, directing potential customers to buy them in the room next door. And I'll sell copies of my two other books, the James Montgomery biography and the new historical novel, The Detective and Dorothy Day. You might think the latter has nothing to do with Grant, but that is not the case. There are a couple of conversations about him in it, and also mention of the Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. There was even more about Grant in the first draft, written almost 40 years ago in the 1980s. But I cut some of it, since the other three books are focused on the Civil War and this one is set a century later, and added the nonviolent radical Catholic activist Dorothy Day. 

Come on up and I'll tell you some stories, maybe of Suye Narita Gambino, who spent most of her long and remarkable life -- as inspiring, in its way, as Grant's -- at the cottage. Her husband Tony gave me and my girlfriend (now wife) Barbara our first tour of the place in 1983, while Suye (as with Barbara's help I figured out years later) was working in the garden. The Gambinos are buried nearby, in Gurn Springs Cemetery on Ballard Road in Wilton.

War and Peace

 

I'll be representing Grant Cottage (ie not selling my own books) at this event tomorrow in the Saratoga Springs Public Library (see this link for details about programs cut off at the bottom of the image).

Then on Sunday May 24 I'll be a tour guide at the cottage, maybe taking in a program by my fellow old-timer Steve Trimm. On June 13, Community Day at the cottage, I will be selling my own books and doing some more volunteering on the side. 

Even though my new historical novel, The Detective and Dorothy Day, is partly about a somewhat famous pacifist, I remain connected to the community of local historians and people interested in the American Civil War, which was the main subject of my first three books.

And I remain formed by the Catholic Worker, where I briefly interacted with Dorothy in 1974-5, as the Vietnam War came to an end. Since then, the United States has involved itself in many other conflicts, mostly in the Middle East. 

Ulysses S. Grant avoided foreign wars as president, and had a peace policy with the American Indians -- although it fell apart in 1876. He also, as readers of his Memoirs can attest, was a blunt, honest and forceful critic of the Mexican War, in which he had fought hard as a young officer. Grant, like Washington and Eisenhower, was obviously no pacifist, but I think all three would be almost as appalled as Day at the routine involvement of our country in a seemingly endless series of wars over the past several generations, with a potential all-destroying world war an ever-present possibility.

The remains of 44 people, mostly young soldiers of the Continental Army, are being reinterred this weekend in Lake George. They were veterans of that army's disastrous Canadian campaign of 1775-6, and very likely died from smallpox. It is proper and poignant for their bones to be laid to rest at Lake George Battlefield Park, and for us to remember, celebrating 250 years since the nation's birth, how the turning point of that war came only 30-odd miles south of Lake George. It was the year after their deaths and the Declaration of Independence, when the Continental Army won the battles of Saratoga. 

But I can't help thinking of Iran, how easy it is to start an unnecessary war expecting easy victory, only to become immediately responsible, through an apparent targeting error, for the deaths of many schoolgirls. Easy, too, to get ensnared in escalation when things go wrong instead of cutting losses, theirs and ours.

Boozy Algorithms (updated)

 

I signed up too late to be on this poster, but will indeed be a vendor (ie selling and signing copies of all four of the books I've written) at this event on Saturday evening May 9 in historic Schuylerville, NY. It sounds like fun, though designated drivers might be a good idea.

Sponsored by Advocates for the Schuylerville Public Library (to which I'll donate some books for raffle or whatever), it will be held at the Old Saratoga American Legion on Clancy Street from 6 to 8 pm. My books will be priced from 10 to 20 dollars each, there will be time to chat, so come on down.

Meanwhile, on the bleaker front of cyberspace, Amazon for some reason listed my new novel The Detective and Dorothy Day as "Temporarily out of stock" for at least several days at the beginning of this month. I am informed this had something to do with their mysterious algorithm but didn't really mean what it said -- ie when that notice appears you can still order the book there without any serious delay in shipping -- but it has contributed to a slump in sales on that site, which presumably is not good for said algorithm. The "out of stock" notice has gone now, so I hope sales will recover. (Update May 7: Sales on Amazon have indeed improved.)

Of course you can still order the book from a store if you want to escape Amazon's clutches. The two lines near the bottom of this Publishers Weekly ad refer to HC (hardcover, with a list price of $19.99) and EB (ebook), along with their ISBNs (international standard book numbers), which might be useful for ordering.

But the truth is non-famous writers can't escape Amazon in the modern book marketplace. That's where you'll make most of your sales, and where the book may take off if people notice it. Good reviews on Amazon are particularly helpful, especially if you bought the book there making it a "verified purchase" -- though they are also helpful on other social media, including specialized sites such as goodreads.

Alas I, being on the technologically clueless and tactless side, have been unable to successfully take control of my goodreads page, and have had limited success (despite their graciousness) on the separate site librarything. Amazon, on the other hand, is easy to navigate and I appreciate its author page. I don't plan to give up on them or urge anyone else to do so.

See you in Schuylerville, maybe. 



 

Couple more Amazon reviews

They say Amazon reviews are the key to building sales, so I was happy to see two more five-stars there over the past few days:

 

Video killed the radio star

 

 

They say keep these things short, but if I'd had more time I would have mentioned my turn from writing books about the Civil War to one partly about a famous pacifist (or someone about as famous as pacifists get). Seems like a good time to study how to avoid another civil war, or a world war.

The Detective and Dorothy Day, a novel by Robert C. Conner (updated)

 

First Amazon customer review is up:

• 

  Books That Inspire

  5.0 out of 5 stars Smart and compelling

  Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2026

  Format: Kindle

  This book really captured the feel of the mid-1970s. I liked how Sy’s investigation uncovered more
• than just a single crime. The deeper he dug, the more complex everything became. The moral
• dilemmas he faces are handled thoughtfully. It’s a mystery that doesn’t rush its message. I’m glad I
• picked this one up.

Press release here:

(Sorry, original link didn't work. This one will.)

BioGamer Girl weighs in.

This is the dedication:

Today (March 9) in nearby Saratoga Springs was the first warm day of spring, nice walking weather for me and Bella. In my prior post Blog Name Change, I hinted about moving away from the Civil War, the focus of my first three books, to this new historical novel, which is partly about a pacifist activist. I don't know if I'm fully on board with Dorothy's views yet, but the quiet streets of Saratoga seemed in sharp contrast to Iran now, or Ukraine, both of which places are in urgent need of an immediate cease-fire followed by peacemaking.

Blog Name Change

 
This blog's name is changing because my upcoming novel is the first of my four books not to focus on the American Civil War. (It does, however, have one character who starts a couple of conversations about Ulysses S. Grant -- because I am apparently incapable of writing a book without mentioning the man.)

The book on the left is my only previous novel, set in 1885, and published in 2018 by Square Circle Press of Schenectady which did a good job with it. Unfortunately, that small press will be going out of business this year, so order now to get your copy. I had a heads-up something like this was coming when I contacted them last year regarding my new book, and that was one of the things pushing me toward self-publishing.

The other book pictured is a novel I just read by Jim Kunstler, who lives not far from me in upstate New York. It's an entertaining, sort-of historical novel set in 1963, just after the JFK assassination, and one of the characters is the author J.D. Salinger. My soon-to-be-published, sort-of historical but also detective story is set in 1975 in the same general area as Kunstler's. It has a major character who is about as famous as Salinger, a writer, social-religious activist, and pacifist. That last attribute seems timely these days, when the most pressing questions are not about old wars but the threat of new ones, around the world and here in the United States, where avoiding civil warfare seems like an urgent priority.

Which doesn't mean I'll stop writing about the 1860s here. But not everyone in America then joined up for the duration. Sam Clemens headed west for Nevada and California, while Martin Henry Freeman voyaged east to Liberia.

Battleship Cove

 

On a cold and windy Veterans Day yesterday, my friend Matt (a Marines vet) and I went to Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA, where I took this photo from the deck of a destroyer launched just after World War II and named after naval aviator Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., who was killed in that war.

The photo shows two ships that did fight in WW2, the submarine Lionfish (which we didn't go aboard) and, in the background, the battleship Massachusetts, the highlight of our tour. Wandering around the decks of this huge ship, where 2,500 men lived and worked, viewing their bunks, galley, hospital, offices, engine room, rooms for calculating gunfire, damage control, radio communications and so forth, all illuminated by informative exhibits, was an engrossing experience. The destroyer was worth seeing too, as I'm sure would be the submarine.

There was also a PT boat, which was bigger and carried bigger torpedoes than I expected. The exhibits there included this one about the most well known PT officer, Joe Kennedy's brother Jack. I hadn't realized that after his famous PT-109 experience, JFK went on to serve in combat on another boat, PT-59.

The PT boats, another exhibit said, were regarded as "expendable". The great film director John Ford was in the Navy during the war, at Midway (where he was wounded) and Omaha beach. His first postwar movie was about PT boat and associated operations during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines in 1941-2. It was called They Were Expendable.

The Massachusetts started the war in the Mediterranean during Operation TORCH, fighting the Vichy French navy at Casablanca. She was hit by fire from a Vichy battleship, which she soon disabled. But no man aboard the Massachusetts -- "a lucky ship" -- was killed then or throughout the war from enemy fire. She spent most of the war in the Pacific, where her campaigns included the US reconquest of the Philippines, begun by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in October 1944. She served at that time under Admiral Bull Halsey in the battles around Leyte Gulf -- but not in the gulf, where the fiercest fighting was and Halsey's fleet was not, being otherwise engaged in combat operations.  

Here's a photo looking over the forward guns of the Massachusetts.

Red Jacket and Ely Parker

 

The wife and I were in Penn Yan, NY, last week (Oct. 27), where on the shore of Keuka Lake we came across this statue of the Seneca chief Red Jacket, who was from the area. He is wearing the peace medal presented to him by President Washington, which is now in Salamanca, NY, in possession of the Seneca Nation.

The Tonawanda Seneca Ely Parker, a kinsman of Red Jacket who interacted with him as a very young child, inherited the medal in 1852 when he became Grand Sachem of the Iroquois Six Nations, and kept it the rest of his life.

Parker met Ulysses S. Grant before the Civil War in Galena, Ill., where he was working as an engineer for the US government. He later served on Grant's military staff, in which capacity he copied out the surrender terms at Appomattox. When Robert E. Lee was introduced to Parker, the Confederate general-in-chief told him he was "glad to see one real American here," to which Parker replied, "We are all Americans." Col. Parker resigned from the Army in 1869, when President Grant appointed him as Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

In 1884, Parker spoke at the ceremony where the bodies of Red Jacket and nine other Seneca chiefs were re-interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo.

Solomon Northup

 

Tomorrow, Sunday Oct. 19, is the last day to see this statue of Solomon Northup in front of the (former) Lincoln Baths in Saratoga Springs, before it moves on to Boston and then to its permanent installation site in Louisiana. 

Northup was a free black man, married with three children, who pursued various trades including violin player. He was lured away from his Saratoga home in 1841, then kidnapped, sold, and spent "Twelve Years a Slave", as he wrote in his best-selling memoir of that title. He was an anti-slavery activist in the 1850s, before disappearing from history. 

Grant's Great-Grandfather, KIA

 

I stopped at Crown Point on my way home this week, crossing over to New York from Vermont on the bridge seen above, next to the scant remains of the French Fort St. Frederic. Cannon could guard Lake Champlain at this narrow point, on the frontier between two colonial empires in the French and Indian War. 

Lieutenant Noah Grant went off to what turned out to be a relatively small-scale yet brutal war from Connecticut, a married American fighting -- like George Washington -- with the British. He was part of an expedition that failed to capture Fort St. Frederic in 1755. The next year he was promoted to captain, and killed at the age of 38 in a skirmish by one account not far from the lake -- by another it was farther south, near Fort Edward. His younger brother Lt. Solomon Grant also was killed that year, in Massachusetts.

Ulysses Grant referred briefly to these events in his Personal Memoirs:

"In the fifth descending generation my great grandfather, Noah Grant, and his younger brother, Solomon, held commissions in the English army, in 1756, in the war against the French and Indians. Both were killed that year."

There is more left of Fort Crown Point which the British built after the French abandoned and destroyed Fort St. Frederic in 1759.

But the British fort was mostly destroyed in an accidental fire in 1773, and its small garrison was quickly captured by Seth Warner's Green Mountain Boys when the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775. The captured cannons, along with those from nearby Ticonderoga, came in useful when Col. Henry Knox delivered 59 of them to Washington near Boston.

A Small Tank Named After General WT Sherman

 

Our dog Bella checks out the Sherman tank outside the New York State Military Museum (a former armory) in Saratoga Springs this afternoon.

As my friend Matt Farenell once pointed out to me, it's a Sherman that makes a crucial appearance at the end of Roberto Benigni's 1997 film Life Is Beautiful. The concept of a Holocaust tragicomedy sounds horrible, but at the time I thought it worked and was moved. The movie is on TCM tonight at 8pm Eastern.

Here and There

 The bride and I are on a mini 40th wedding anniversary trip to Vermont, which includes my book talk tomorrow (Saturday Sept. 14) on Juneteenth to the Green Mountain Civil War Round Table in White River Junction (at the Bugbee Senior Center after a noon luncheon).

On the way, we stopped in Rutland yesterday and discovered Martin Henry Freeman:

 

Last week, in Congress Park, Saratoga Springs, NY, our dog Bella checked out the memorial statue of a soldier representing the NY 77th Infantry Regiment, part of the Army of the Potomac. (The number is a reference to the Revolutionary War American victory at Saratoga in 1777.) The soldier's statue was pulled down and smashed to pieces by still unknown vandals in 2020. Insurance and the listed organizations contributed to its restoration.

Col. George L. Willard, by the way, was killed on the second day of Gettysburg stopping Barksdale's Charge, Longstreet's exploitation of Sickles' rash advance into the peach orchard. The Confederate General Barksdale was mortally wounded. 

Bella and I continued our park stroll to the Spirit of Life statue, sculpted by Daniel Chester French, who later did the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall.

 

The top of Mount McGregor

 

Something new this year at Grant Cottage, the Saratoga County, NY site where Ulysses S. Grant completed his memoirs and died in 1885. The top of Mt. McGregor (at the southern end of the Adirondacks) has been opened to the public. It used to be, as I well remember, the site of the prison ballfield, and we tour guides were instructed not to toss back any baseballs that sailed across the fence, because the authorities were concerned about potential smuggling of contraband. On the left in the above photo is a guard tower, where an armed corrections officer kept an eye out.

The Mount McGregor prison closed a decade ago, and New York state has been trying unsuccessfully to sell the empty buildings for redevelopment. Most of them are behind (west) and to the left (south) of the summit, and not seen in this photo, and most of them date from the early 20th century. It was built then as a tuberculosis hospital, a use which became obsolescent with the development of penicillin. Then it was a rest home for World War II soldiers and veterans, then a home for the developmentally disabled. Then in the 1970s with the crime rate rising, especially in New York City, it became a medium and minimum-security prison. Then in the 21st century, with crime falling, it closed.

Grant Cottage was built in 1878 by Duncan McGregor, after whom the mountain is named, as a small hotel, and originally stood here. When McGregor sold to developers, they rolled the cottage on logs a little way downhill to where Grant found it and where it remains today. In its place, they built here the Hotel Balmoral, which burned down in 1897.

When the state first marketed the site, the summit was included in the property for sale. But they eventually gave it to Grant Cottage, and plans are to tear down the fence (the razor wire is gone already) and integrate it into the historic site. 

The photo below shows the view to the east, across the Hudson Valley to the Green Mountains of Vermont. 

Peter and Clarinda Dumont

This week's meeting of Da Buffs, a Civil War dinner club that gets together every couple of months at the Shaker Road Loudonville Fire Department in Albany County, NY, hosted a presentation by Diana McCarthy about her ancestors Peter and Clarinda Dumont. Diana, portraying Clarinda, is at center of photo above. (A couple of Da Buffs are in Zouave uniforms, because Peter's regiment, the 146th New York Infantry, in 1863 took in those surviving members of the former 5th NY Infantry, a mustered-out Zouave regiment, who were remaining in the Army.)

Listening to a typical Civil War talk, we buffs already know the main outline of the story. But I didn't know what happened to Peter Dumont in the war years, and a lot did. He was, for example, captured at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, and imprisoned at Libby Prison in Richmond. Sent back for exchange, he was then, as I discovered from Diana's talk based on Peter's letters, held in Maryland under the disgraceful terms and conditions imposed by War Department-operated "parole camps" which confined Union soldiers who were waiting for exchange.

It was a moving and informative presentation. Diana McCarthy can be contacted at civilwar@dynasysweb.com.

Gettysburg July 1

 

Gettysburg July 1 is the title of a 1996 book I read recently by David G. Martin. Its 736 pages provide a detailed, readable and exhaustive account of the first day of the battle, the 161st anniversary of which is fast approaching. (Martin includes several citations of the work of Mark Dunkelman, historian of the 154th NY Volunteer Infantry, and my host in Providence, RI, when I spoke at the Civil War Round Table there.)

As is well known, in the late afternoon of July 1, 1863, the Confederates broke through, first against the Union XI Corps commanded by O.O. Howard, and then against the I Corps commanded by Abner Doubleday, who had moved up from divisional command that morning when the preceding corps commander, John Reynolds, was killed. Army commander George Meade replaced Doubleday with John Newton (his junior in rank) as corps commander the next day, which is odd because Doubleday did an excellent job, as Martin's record demonstrates. He held the corps together to repel several strong assaults, retreating in good order from one defensive position to another until finally being outflanked and forced to rapidly withdraw through the town by the more numerous Confederates. The two battered Union corps established a last redoubt along Cemetery Ridge, with some reinforcements trickling in along with Meade in the evening. Doubleday resumed command of his division for the rest of the battle, but was then out of combat assignment for the rest of his career. Maybe he'd seen enough of war, firing literally the first Union shot of this one from Fort Sumter, and seeing much hard action since, including at Antietam.

Martin shares the conventional wisdom that the Confederates might have won the battle had they pressed harder to take Cemetery Hill late in the day. I am skeptical, preferring Longstreet's advice that evening to Lee to outflank Meade and get between him and Washington. (But then I'm prejudiced in Longstreet's favor because he was a pro-Reconstruction friend of Grant.)

Speaking of Grant, July 4 is the anniversary of the surrender of Vicksburg, which along with the great defensive victory at Gettysburg marks the military turning point of the war. (July 4 was also Nellie Grant's birthday in 1855.) Flag Day seems to have come and gone, but there will be a parade so designated, followed by a concert and fireworks, starting at 5 p.m. Thursday July 4 in Saratoga Springs, NY, and I'll be marching(?) along with a Grant Cottage contingent.

The photo above is of Doubleday's birthplace in nearby Ballston Spa, and the one below of a historical marker a few blocks away. Whatever his connection to baseball, Doubleday fought well at Gettysburg (he was wounded July 2, but stayed on the field through the next day).

The end photo is of my wife Barbara last October 5 on the roof of a pizza bar called The Speckled Pig; the Doubleday house is in background at far left.

 

Dart on Dart

 

I mentioned Clarence Dart on this blog a couple of years ago, and on Memorial Day this week I snuck away from my volunteer duties at Grant Cottage to attend a talk given by his son Warren, a retired schoolteacher and coach from Saratoga County.

Dart senior, a pillar of his Saratoga Springs church and community after the war, was a Tuskegee airman. He survived 95 combat missions in Europe in World War II, and was shot down twice. He later worked as a draftsman for General Electric Co. for 37 years, in Schenectady and at KAPL in Niskayuna.

African-American troops first served (in significant numbers) in the US military during the Civil War, when they were in segregated units. That segregation remained in place through World War II.

Salisbury, MA talk coming up Wednesday

 I will be speaking and PowerPointing this Wednesday May 8 at the Civil War Roundtable of the Merrimack, Hilton Senior Center, 43 Lafayette Road, Salisbury, Massachusetts. The meeting runs from 7:30 to 9:30 pm.

As usual these days, I'll be speaking mostly on the Montgomery biography, but no doubt Generals Granger and Grant, the central figures in my other two books, will also enter the mix. The event is open to the public and free of charge.