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Happy Tuesday, everyone! What a crazy week, right? Luckily here there have been no earthquakes or floods, just continuing heat and drought (two straight months of 105+ temps–I want autumn already!) and I am buried in trying to finish revisions before I go on vacation on the 12th. So this post will be short….

I’ve been reading Amanda Foreman’s fascinating new book, A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War. It’s 900 pages so it’s taking me a while, but every time I sit down to read I find myself totally engrossed. I’m embarrassed to admit I know so much less about American history than European history, and very little about the Civil War (except what I learned as a kid touring some battlefields with my grandparents!), but almost nothing about European attitudes toward the war, but Foreman’s book reads like a novel about complex, fascinating, and very human characters of all sorts (both known and unknown). Their world, much like ours, was caught in the grip of profound uncertainty, and Britain was no exception despite their official neutrality. (British attitudes were especially complex, given how attitudes were overwhelmingly in favor of abolition but Northern mills were heavily dependent on Southern cotton–the blockade threw tens of thousands into unemployment…)

I highly recommend this book! And now I need to get offline and get back to work, so let’s look at some historical photos (which I love doing!). Have you read anything good lately? Gone on any good summer vacations?


















I live in Virginia, a state area steeped in history, from the first English settlements to the homes of our founding fathers, to, most tragically, the American Civil War.

Our state is filled with Civil War battlefields and historic sites. Our highways are dotted with historic markers: Mosby’s Midnight Raid, Battle of Ox Hill, J.E.B Stuart at Munson’s Mill. Right down the street from me is St. Mary’s Church where Clara Barton nursed the wounded from the Second Battle of Manassas and was then inspired to found the American Red Cross.

This past Saturday, my husband and I went with our friends, Helen and Eugene, to their neighborhood historic site, Blenheim (the Fairfax, VA one, not that Blenheim), for Civil War day.

Blenheim is a unique Civil War site. It’s house was built in 1859, and its plaster walls had not yet cured enough to be painted or papered when Union soldiers were billeted there in 1861. The walls became the soldiers’ canvas for graffiti. When the house and property was acquired by Fairfax City, the house was restored to the original plaster to reveal this historic graffiti.

As we watched the reenactors or listened to the band play Stephen Foster songs, I wondered why the Civil War had never captured my interest as a romantic time period. Why had I picked Regency England instead?

We have some basis for finding the American Civil War romantic: Gone With The Wind, North and South (the Patrick Swayze 1985 version, not the Richard Armitage one), a whole list of Romance novels . But it certainly does not seem to have the same appeal as the Regency.

Most obvious for me is the difficult issue of slavery, a dark blot on our country’s history. It is hard to craft a Civil War story without somehow touching on the issue of slavery. Even if you can demonize the Yankees, like in Gone With The Wind, can you really make the Rebels heroic if they support owning slaves? How do you pick the good guys and the bad guys in the Civil War? It’s impossible!

Then there is the matter of uniforms. Let’s face it, a Civil War soldier, whether Union or Confederate, is no match for a man in Regimentals!

Do you have a favorite Civil War novel or movie? Can you see any other differences that make the Regency a more popular historical period for romance than the American Civil War era?

Speaking of men in Regimentals, I’ll be giving way a signed copy of Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady to one lucky commenter on my Diane’s Blog this week. Diane’s Blog will appear every THURSDAY starting this week.

Blogging at DianeGaston.com
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