Battle of Gettysburg: A Visual Tour
Describing myself is kind of depressing. At my advanced age, it doesn’t look Iike I’m going to make President or even become a nice dentist. (Sorry, Mom!)  But I console myself with my pipe, a shot or two of bourbon, and decent health.  When not being a couch-potato, I can often be found tooling around the country in a beat-up old van, along with my attack-cat, Pepper, my chief critic. The stated purpose of these trips is to gather data and photos for books – all two of them at present. I camp out near my target, in this case the Gettysburg battlefield, and spend a week or two just walking the fields, soaking in the atmosphere, measuring distances, and taking photos. And then I usually come back to gather even more data.   I'm constantly working on my next book. The more confidence I gain in my writing (if not in my grammar), the more determined I am in taking full advantage of modern technology to help bring historical actions to life - definitely using photography where possible (fortunately there are lots of photographs of the Gettysburg battlefield for me to work with), and maybe not too far down the road, animation and video. As the technology improves, my ultimate intent is to write books that are anchored by their commentary, but which also make generous use of photography, videography and animation, as the situation requires, to make the subjects as vivid as possible. Since I’m closer to the end of this particular life than its beginning, one thing I wanted to do before I check out was study the history of the Gettysburg battle.   I can remember sitting on the living couch when I was a kid in Illinois, reading about the clash of the Blue & the Gray.  Back then that war seemed to have happened a zillion years ago.  But as I’ve grown older and time passes faster, I’ve come to realize that the Civil War wasn’t that long ago at all. I think the last Civil War veteran died in the 1950s, in my lifetime, and there were lots of them still around when my parents were born.   I also occasionally try to make an honest living by doing book design for budding authors, putting to use the computer tools and knowledge I’ve picked up while publishing my own books.  Anyway, Gettysburg has always fascinated me and I decided to combine that interest with a couple of others, which are writing and web publishing. The result is the book you see here.  Hope you enjoy this book and have a good day! Jack Kunkel