NF Why should I trust Eric Buckland when he talks about Mosby?

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Eric Buckland has an article in the current America's Civil War magazine about John Mosby under the title Legends on Horse Back. So does Buckland know his stuff about Mosby? I guess I will probably read his article.
 
I am not familiar with him but is there some reason you shouldn't trust him? For myself, I usually trust all historical authors, while realizing they all have biases, until I have a reason not to.

If you have read the article what do you think.of it?

John
 
I am not familiar with him but is there some reason you shouldn't trust him? For myself, I usually trust all historical authors, while realizing they all have biases, until I have a reason not to.

If you have read the article what do you think.of it?

John

I have not read it yet. I see that Eric Buckland has 5 books out on Mosby, but I wonder if he has a balanced view. He has given over one hundred presentations to a variety of groups to include many Sons of Confederate Veteran, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Civil War Round Table, museums, historical societies, and other groups. He has two C-SPAN presentations.

He seems to give a bunch of talks, but I had never heard of him until the latest copy of America's Civil War magazine arrived. I often look up the authors of the articles before I read them so I can see what I think of the author.
 
By the way, and just for the record, I think that the question posed by the OP is a rude and disrespectful one. If you want to challenge someone's bona fides, fine, but there's a better way than saying, "why should I trust this person" when the person in question has done nothing to warrant that sort of disrespect. Just my opinion, of course.

Our pal, the "famous" Ph.D. who does so much "groundbreaking work", is the notable exception to this rule. Question away.... :bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:
 
By the way, and just for the record, I think that the question posed by the OP is a rude and disrespectful one. If you want to challenge someone's bona fides, fine, but there's a better way than saying, "why should I trust this person" when the person in question has done nothing to warrant that sort of disrespect. Just my opinion, of course.

Our pal, the "famous" Ph.D. who does so much "groundbreaking work", is the notable exception to this rule. Question away.... :bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:
Is that the one with the 18 paragraph bio at Amazon? Leonardo da Vinci had a shorter resume.
 
I have not read it yet. I see that Eric Buckland has 5 books out on Mosby, but I wonder if he has a balanced view. He has given over one hundred presentations to a variety of groups to include many Sons of Confederate Veteran, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Civil War Round Table, museums, historical societies, and other groups. He has two C-SPAN presentations.

He seems to give a bunch of talks, but I had never heard of him until the latest copy of America's Civil War magazine arrived. I often look up the authors of the articles before I read them so I can see what I think of the author.
This is Eric Buckland. I was just wondering if your questions about me have been satisfactorily answered through reading the article or by other means.
 
Hello @howaybigbren and welcome to CivilWarTalk - the best place on the internet for Civil War discussion. I apologize for the potential for the title of this post to perhaps be misconstrued. I do not think there was any intent on the part of the OP for offense; just a poor choice of words. We are all very pleased to welcome you aboard and look forward to your input. Thank you for joining and for your contributions to the discussion.
 
This is Eric Buckland. I was just wondering if your questions about me have been satisfactorily answered through reading the article or by other means.

Yes, I enjoyed the article. The article did seem to be informative and strait forward. Sometimes in the past I have thought an author who had wrote several books on a historical figure had became bias in favor of that historical figure. There is nothing horribly wrong with this but I do like to know if the author is giving both sides of the story equal consideration. I find this bias can happen with controversial figures, Custer and Forrest come to mind as well as Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Jackson. John Mosby could well be another controversial figure who could fall in to this.

I might want to read one of your books as I do not know much about John Mosby. I was not intending to be insulting or question your honesty, but if the magazine article did encourage me to purchase one of your books, I wondered if the book would be a fair discussion of Mosby.
 
Yes, I enjoyed the article. The article did seem to be informative and strait forward. Sometimes in the past I have thought an author who had wrote several books on a historical figure had became bias in favor of that historical figure. There is nothing horribly wrong with this but I do like to know if the author is giving both sides of the story equal consideration. I find this bias can happen with controversial figures, Custer and Forrest come to mind as well as Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Jackson. John Mosby could well be another controversial figure who could fall in to this.

I might want to read one of your books as I do not know much about John Mosby. I was not intending to be insulting or question your honesty, but if the magazine article did encourage me to purchase one of your books, I wondered if the book would be a fair discussion of Mosby.
I am glad that you enjoyed the article. All of my books are about some of the men who rode with Mosby's Rangers. They are essentially presentations of my research and contain the articles, stories, passages from books, photos, etc. that I have found about the men. Only one of my books has a chapter on Mosby - I figured that he has already had enough written about him. Besides, if it were not for the men who rode with him, it would have been Mosby's Ranger. Generally speaking, he was extremely fortunate in the quality of men who were in his unit and certainly played a huge role in his successes.
 
I am glad that you enjoyed the article. All of my books are about some of the men who rode with Mosby's Rangers. They are essentially presentations of my research and contain the articles, stories, passages from books, photos, etc. that I have found about the men. Only one of my books has a chapter on Mosby - I figured that he has already had enough written about him. Besides, if it were not for the men who rode with him, it would have been Mosby's Ranger. Generally speaking, he was extremely fortunate in the quality of men who were in his unit and certainly played a huge role in his successes.
Eric, where can I learn more about Mosby's time in Bristol?
 
Eric, where can I learn more about Mosby's time in Bristol?
Gray Ghost: The Life of COL John Singleton Mosby by James A. Ramage, The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby by Mosby, Hell Is Being Republican in Virginia: The Post-War Relationship Between John Singleton Mosby and Ulysses S. Grant by David Goetz are all good starts. I would also contact the Bristol Historical Association (https://www.bristolhistoricalassociation.com/) to see what little nuggets they might have in their collections. I believe some of Mosby's paperwork from when he was a lawyer there are in their files. BREAK, BREAK - As a shameless plug for one of my books, I will assume that you might be interested in my book From Rockbridge to Loudoun: Mosby's Keydet Rangers which has a very large amount of information (with every photo I could find) about the 57 men who matriculated at VMI and rode with Mosby's Rangers. I started the first edition of it (have since added about 200 pages and 100 photographs) when my youngest son was a Rat in 2006 - the book now is the 4th edition. If you are interested, shoot me an e-mail at [email protected].

 
Gray Ghost: The Life of COL John Singleton Mosby by James A. Ramage, The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby by Mosby, Hell Is Being Republican in Virginia: The Post-War Relationship Between John Singleton Mosby and Ulysses S. Grant by David Goetz are all good starts. I would also contact the Bristol Historical Association (https://www.bristolhistoricalassociation.com/) to see what little nuggets they might have in their collections. I believe some of Mosby's paperwork from when he was a lawyer there are in their files. BREAK, BREAK - As a shameless plug for one of my books, I will assume that you might be interested in my book From Rockbridge to Loudoun: Mosby's Keydet Rangers which has a very large amount of information (with every photo I could find) about the 57 men who matriculated at VMI and rode with Mosby's Rangers. I started the first edition of it (have since added about 200 pages and 100 photographs) when my youngest son was a Rat in 2006 - the book now is the 4th edition. If you are interested, shoot me an e-mail at [email protected].

Thanks and I'll do that now!
 
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