Chemo sucks bad but it is working. 1 more to go and surgery

Anyhoo, You mentioned Fredericksburg. I have 3 family members that were in that battle with the youngest one being only 12 at the time. Can you imagine? He was a drummer boy, but still. The horrors he must have seen boggles my mind and saddens me that many, many children on both sides had to endure such things. All 3 from the 32nd Virginia Infantry.
Last month I bought a 3 volume set titled, "Civil War" by Shelby Foote. It's a ton of reading, but well worth the time. He lays out the war from the perspective from both sides and is quite eye opening. I've been lucky as my cousin is Tim Smith, a widely known historian and member of the Battlefield Trust, who buys land to preserve these battlefields for future generations to learn from and understand the real cost and scale of that war. As a boy I was shown the pictures and letters from soldiers on both sides at Tim's family home in Dare Va. I knew long ago that both sides were at fault for what happened, and it's sad to me that only the one side of the story gets told most of the time.
Was the CSA wrong? Absolutely...but so was the North. This is what I've concluded from almost 4 decades of study and research. ANd with a little help from Tim.
