I started working on the tour book a bit today, mostly the intro and the campaign background. Writing the text should be the easiest part of this project as I have plenty of first hand accounts and modern studies to utilize, and I am going to definitely focus on Cheatham's attack against Jackson's division and Starkweather's brigade from Rousseau's division. I am definitely going to mirror Mr. Carter's Snodgrass Hill book (see previous post), as I think the format is extremely friendly towards battlefield trampers.
After the text has been written, I will need to visit the battlefield to determine the tour stop locations and to measure distances between those locations. I do not plan on following the current tour route, but will use stops that flow more readily with Cheatham's division as it attacked towards Dixville Crossroads. I will use my gps to create an overall map of the locations, write the text for moving between those locations, and then have maps made for the book.
Speaking of maps, I think I have found the person to do the maps for this project. Hal Jespersen contacted me about this project, and his prices seem to be reasonable. He did the maps for the recent Morgan's Raid book by Cincinnati Civil War Round Table member David Lowery, and those maps are excellent. Here is a sample of a Perryville map he completed for the Perryville article on Wikipedia:
And one from David's book:
As you can see, Mr. Jespersen does excellent work. You can see more of his maps on his website, Civil War Maps.
Finding a publisher will be another step that may be a bit perplexing. I really do like the production value of Mr. Carter's book, but it appears that his publisher may be a very small company.
As I slowly progress on this project, be certain to stop by from time to time to see where I am at. I am excited to be pushing forward with this idea!
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