Down a research rabbit hole!

[L Verge]

Steve's post fits in great with a pleasant visit that I had yesterday with a member of this forum. Dennis Urban of Tennessee spent a few hours discussing history with me, including his book on The Making of a Civilian Soldier in the Civil War, which will be released in a few days. And thank you once again Dennis for the complimentary copy.

I link this to the rabbit hole analogy because (as Dennis describes in his opening chapters) he purchased the original diary without knowing who the young man was who had begun it in 1861. Nowhere in the manuscript was there a name -- only a New York infantry regiment, which turned out to be wrong. Therefore, Dennis entered the rabbit's hole and started a multi-month search for identification. This led to a family biography in parts, the travels through the Civil War, and eventually the death of the soldier (buy the book to find out his name and history...) at age 82.

Dennis purchased the diary sight unseen in 1998, and his work began. Twenty-one years later, that diary is being published for students of the Civil War to learn from, thanks to this one historian's perseverance. James O. Hall used to warn us about the Lincoln assassination story -- "Once bitten by the bug, there is no known cure." I think that is true for many fascinating bits of history, and that's why this forum is so wonderful. We fellow history addicts find sympathetic ears in a world today that does not realize the importance of knowing about the past. Let's hope that we all continue to chase those darn rabbits!