500 Quotes Later

One of my original intentions when I introduced this blog in January was to center my posts around quotations made by and about the personalities who were a part of the Maryland Campaign. To some extent, my journey has taken me in a slightly different direction. I have spent much more time than I previously imagined displaying photos and videos taken around Sharpsburg and South Mountain. I have received many nice comments from folks about these photos and will continue to post more in the future. However, a core component of my Civil War study has been the quotes that I discover in my reading and that I subsequently collect. These have not been as prominent on this blog as I originally hoped, expect as part of my occasional update of the quote count on the left column of this blog, and the “Today's Quote” which I have never come anywhere near to posting every day. But while I have not been posting as often, I have been working hard on my quote collection. The collection work has occupied more time than I expected, often at the expense of my writing here. But I am pleased to say that I now have over 500 quotations from 73 different Civil War personages, most who figure largely in the Battle of Antietam. My collection also includes quotes that are not attributable toward a person but address for example the severity of the fighting at Antietam. Those are just grouped under a general "Antietam" subject heading. Currently the collection is in an Excel spreadsheet with columns for:

• Who the Quote is about
• “The actual quote”
• Who made the Quote
• The Circumstances surrounding the Quote
• The Bibliography of the Quote. In other words my source. Each quote has a source.

This organization makes this pretty easy to sort but as the spreadsheet grows, it is becoming increasingly more cumbersome to manage, or at least for me it is. I have been asked if I intend to somehow make my collection available on line. That is the plan but I haven’t quite figured out how to do that. Anyone out there with an idea on how I can do that should send me a comment.

The other thing that took me away from my work for an extended period was the passing of both my parents – my Dad in February who I mentioned in an earlier post, and my dear Mother on May 1. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of either of them but I would like to believe that they are now urging me to pick up the pen, or in the 21st Century variation of that – open the lid of the laptop – and get back to work. So that is what I intend to do. It is good to be back.