Rascals Diary Part 2

Rascals diary - Part 2

I am Rascal. Puss. For a while, I thought my name was "Who's there?" because my people always cried out in delight, "Who's there?" whenever they saw me. And they saw me very often. I was pretty angry about a stupid name. But now I know that my name is Rascal, and I am reassured. I like Rascal much better than "Who's there?" I'd hate to be called that. Yesterday I turned three months old and didn't get a birthday party with cake and paper hats because mistress says that you only have a birthday once a year and not every month. I think that's pretty stupid. I don't even know how long a year is. And a year sounds pretty long. But in the evening at least I managed to bite off her bread in an unobserved short moment. Not like cake, but better than nothing. I have two people, a dog, a billion toy mice and balls, a basket everywhere, and I have acquired a few more that shouldn't be mine, and scratching trees with dangling toys on them, and I am busy all day long clearing the houseplants of their leaves so that I always have something new to hunt, and I follow mistress absolutely at every turn, which is quite exhausting with her eternal back and forth. But then I cuddle up to the dog and we take a nap together. Oh yes, and I am quite busy with eating, because I still have to grow. Because when I grow up, I want to be a lion. Master once decided that he had a cat hair allergy, so mistress told him that he was only allergic to the nonsense I do all the time. But he got used to it in the meantime and he loves me very much.

The Second Battle of Winchester

A comprehensive, deeply researched history of the pivotal 1863 American Civil War battle fought in northern Virginia. June 1863. The Gettysburg Campaign is underway. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia pushes west into the Shenandoah Valley and then north toward the Potomac River. Only one significant force stands in its way: Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy’s Union division of the Eighth Army Corps in the vicinity of Winchester and Berryville, Virginia. What happens next is the subject of this provocative new book. Milroy, a veteran Indiana politician-turned-soldier, was convinced the approaching enemy consisted of nothing more than cavalry or was merely a feint, and so defied repeated instructions to withdraw. In fact, the enemy consisted of General Lee’s veteran Second Corps under Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell. Milroy’s controversial decision committed his outnumbered and largely inexperienced men against some of Lee’s finest veterans. The complex and fascinating maneuvering and fighting on June 13-15 cost Milroy hundreds of killed and wounded and about 4,000 captured (roughly one-half of his command), with the remainder routed from the battlefield. The combat cleared the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley of Federal troops, demonstrated Lee could obtain supplies on the march, justified the elevation of General Ewell to replace the recently deceased Stonewall Jackson, and sent shockwaves through the Northern states. Today, the Second Battle of Winchester is largely forgotten. But in June 1863, the politically charged front-page news caught President Lincoln and the War Department by surprise and forever tarnished Milroy’s career. The beleaguered Federal soldiers who fought there spent a lifetime seeking redemption, arguing their three-day “forlorn hope” delayed the Rebels long enough to allow the Army of the Potomac to arrive and defeat Lee at Gettysburg. For the Confederates, the decisive leadership on display outside Winchester masked significant command issues buried within the upper echelons of Jackson’s former corps that would become painfully evident during the early days of July on a different battlefield in Pennsylvania. Award-winning authors Eric J. Wittenberg and Scott L. Mingus Sr. combined their researching and writing talents to produce the most in-depth and comprehensive study of Second Winchester ever written, and now in paperback. Their balanced effort, based upon scores of archival and previously unpublished diaries, newspaper accounts, and letter collections, coupled with familiarity with the terrain around Winchester and across the lower Shenandoah Valley, explores the battle from every perspective.

My Diaries: 1888-1900.-pt.2. 1900-1914