Manassas: A Battlefield Guide

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments It is with great pleasure that I express appreciation to the people who helped me put together my second contribution to this distinguished series. As before, the list begins with series editors Mark Grimsley, Brooks Simpson, and Steve Woodworth, who invited me to contribute this volume to the This Hallowed Ground series and offered welcome guidance and encouragement throughout the process. Brooks especially merits appreciation for, among many other things, taking a good chunk of time away from his schedule to accompany me on a field check of significant portions of the guide. I also appreciate all that the folks working for or with the University of Nebraska Press, especially Heather Lundine, Bridget Barry, Sabrina Ehmke Sergeant, Sara Springsteen, Alison Rold, Weston Poor, Rosemary Vestal, Kathryn Owens, Acacia Gentrup, Tish Fobben, and Judith Hoover, did to shepherd this work from raw manuscript to finished book, and the superb work Erin Greb did on the maps that accompany the text. I also want to thank the distinguished students of the Manassas Campaigns who generously shared their expertise and provided badly needed feedback on earlier drafts of the guide. John J. Hennessy let me know when I was on the right track in the sections on Second Manassas and helped me get back on it when not, while Harry Smeltzer did the same with the sections on First Manassas. Ray Brown, the chief of interpretation and cultural resources management at Manassas National Battlefield Park, could not have been more helpful or supportive of my efforts and provided especially appreciated information and insights on changes that were being made in the park in preparation for the 150th anniversaries of the two battles. I have been fortunate to have had several opportunities to lead tours and staff rides of the Manassas battlefields. The first of these came during the summer of 1998, when I received training in the art of leading folks around battlefields in general , and Manassas in particular, from Edmund Raus, Chris Bryce, Terri Bard, and James Burgess. Since then I have had the good fortune to take folks around Manassas on a number of occasions and am thankful to those who collaborated with me on those programs, especially the incomparable Ed Bearss, J. Michael Miller, Carol Reardon, Jeffry Wert, and Gary Ecelbarger. I also thank my colleagues at the Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College for their friendship and collegiality, particularly those members of the department who have collaborated with me on staff rides of various Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields over the past few years. x Acknowledgments As before—indeed, as always—my deepest appreciation is to my wife, Rachel, and daughter, Corinne, for their love and support while I worked on this project. I also am thankful for the support I have received in the course of my efforts from my parents, Robert and Diane Rafuse, and brothers, Jonathan and Stephen Rafuse. Since the last two have yet to have a book dedicated to them, they get this one. All illustrations reproduced in this book first appeared in the four volumes of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (New York: Century, 1887–88). The volume and page number from which each illustration was taken are indicated at the end of each caption. Off to war. blcw 1:278. To Jon and Steve ...