As the one-hundredth anniversary of the War Between the States grew ever nearer, a Pulitzer Prize winning Civil War Historian, Bruce Catton, wrote the attached article concerning the overwhelming popularity that the nation was finding in their study of that remarkable contest:
"It is hardly going too far to say that the Civil War is attracting more recruits now than it ever did when it was hot. None of the present day enlistees will ever do either side any particular good - after all, the war has been over and done with for nearly a century - but the Grand Army of Civil War Buffs does keep growing in the most fantastic way."
"One of the rewarding things about studying the Civil War is that sooner or later you feel that you actually knew the men who were in it; indeed, the veteran Buff is apt to get the feeling that he himself was in that war, somehow, even though he has no scars or battle ribbons to prove it..."
Were he alive today, Bruce Catton would be saddened to learn that the term "the Civil War" is entered into the Google query box 4,090,000 times every month - unlike the term "Star Wars", which is entered into Google 24,900,000 times during the same period.
