William Faulkner's famous quote about history is well-known to many of us, and it's a cliché in the sense that - as a species - we embrace patterns and find comfort in the familiar things gone by. But as with everything in history, particularly the American Civil War, "it's complicated," as historian Henry Gates has often said. William Faulkner was on record as a liberal opponent of the white supremacy he experienced in his native South, but once, in a drunken interview - during the throes of the 1956 integration debate - he said his allegiance remained with the South, vowing "to make the same choice Robert E. Lee made then, I'll make it." We are all walking contradictions, but Faulkner's words reinforce the notion that the Civil War says as much about ourselves as it does those who experienced first-hand those passionate days of the first half of the sixth decade of the late nineteenth century. Whether it's how we memorialize the conflict or how post-modern views conflict with our old, preconceived prejudices, the search for answers and the ability to acknowledge that perhaps there is no answer is where the satisfaction lies. For those of us who have that unsatiable appetite for Civil War history, these contradictions and the participants who played a role in it feed that gnawing desire to consume more and more of it. 
                                                                                                                                                                                               While the secondary works of my favorite Civil War historians - the Catton's, the Foote's, and McPherson's - will always be on the top shelf of my library and have a role in interpreting events and identifying trends, I find the primary sources the most enlightening. A history nerd at heart, I rarely sit down with a Civil War book without thumbing back to the sources for those little gems of previously hidden knowledge; more information leads down the rabbit hole of questioning everything. Very few events and personalities of the war can be easily pigeonholed in a nice, tidy box. Was Gettysburg the turning point of the war? Did George McClellan, with his own personality and political viewpoint, unnecessarily extend the war longer than it had to be? These are the kinds of paths we will take on our journeys.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                With the availability of first-hand accounts and primary sources now at the touch of a keyboard, the opportunities are endless to access the sources that historians of decades ago waited for at a post office box or a research assistant's connection to some distant archive. While an author of the 1950s, someone like Bruce Catton had to peruse through 128 volumes of the Official Records in the depths of the Library of Congress or on loan from the War Department; a simple Google search will suffice today. In the spirit of twenty-first-century advancements, I started this tiny, very independent publishing venture we call Hardtack Books and its sister quarterly magazine publication, Hardtack Illustrated.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                Our mission statement is plain and simple: we specialize in republishing timeless Civil War narratives and bringing those sources, including memoirs, correspondence, and newspaper articles, together in contemporary publications using modern styles in typography, graphics, and design. We issue publications in two forms: our quarterly magazine, Hardtack Illustrated, will be a seasonal issue, with readers offered two ways to consume new content, either in a digital magazine format issue or as an online blog via our website at www.hardtackbooks.com. All the content in the magazine will be free, with no irritating ads or clickbait. Additionally, we reissue Civil War works  at a modest price restyled in paperback form using modern typography, images, and graphics for a sophisticated, twenty-first-century reader. At the end of 2023, we reissued Stephen Crane’s enormously well-received novel on the Civil War, The Red Badge of Courage. A quick search on Amazon will reveal hundreds of scanned versions of this novel; we like our version, which uses modern type and dozens of rare images found in the Library of Congress.  For the coming year, we plan to issue two print books. George Alfred Townsend’s Campaigns of a Non-Combatant was published in 1866, one of the first memoirs of a Civil War correspondent, and is a dramatic tale of the conflict, as seen through the eyes of a young, energetic, and ambitious man who witnesses the events of a lifetime. In this issue of Hardtack Illustrated, a sample chapter is included. In a more ambitious project, we are releasing a reissue of the classic memoir by John Billings, Hardtack and Coffee. Many Civil War enthusiasts are familiar with and likely have a copy of the University of Nebraska 1993 scanned version of the 1887 original. While our version retains the exact text and 200+ illustrations of Charles Reed, look for an updated sidebar style and additional images from Reed’s sketchbook. As with all our printed books, an index will be included in our issue. Look for more information on our 2024 releases later this year.
                                                                                                                                                                                                   In this first edition of Hardtack Illustrated, readers will find three featured articles typical of the type readers will discover in future editions. I have always had a strange affinity for James Longstreet, perhaps because of his post-war knack for flaunting the political tides of the Reconstructionist South, so we are incredibly excited to provide a rare 1893 interview of the Old War Horse taken, according to the interviewer, during a battlefield walk at Antietam, something which I am sure most of us often do. Imagine walking that field with James Longstreet, aged and slowed by his war injuries but still aggressive and engaged. In a feature about Abraham Lincoln, Noah Brooks, a personal acquaintance of the President, joined him during his visit to General Joe Hooker and the Army of the Potomac in April 1863. Brooks recorded the president's excellent spirit and good humor in his 1896 memoir, Washington in Lincoln's Time. Finally, in our third featured article, George Alfred Townsend, a war correspondent, had ample opportunity to observe the goings-on during McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. This edition includes an excerpt from the upcoming book  Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, describing the campaign's final days, his escape on a hospital transport, and his arrival at the safety of Fort Monroe. Not bad for a twenty-one-year-old war correspondent.
                                                                                                                                                                                                Our issues will always have featured materials, but look for our central pieces too. In a running feature, we will explore the Civil War ancestry of famous persons. In this issue, we take a look at a rather undescript private of the 14th New Jersey with a famous last name in New Jersey: Private Alexander Springsteen. In our "Quotes and Incidents" section we explore the origins of famous quotes and incidents from the American Civil War. In this issue, we take a look at one of the more familiar insults hurled at a general: "I don't care for John Pope one pinch of owl dung." It's a unique use of owl imagry and well known to many Civil War enthusiasts, but how many of us know where the insult originated and which authors promulgated the phrase into Civil War literature.  Finally, I had the wonderful opportunity to read D. Scott Hartwig's excellent  volume of the Battle of Antietam, see the review of I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign on page 46.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                    I would like to extend to readers the opportunity to contact me in case you come across Civil War era material which you think would be great to include in future editions, or if you can think of ways to improve.  I can be reached at jbiggs@hardtackbooks.com.