Hit leaders

Having now passed 150 posts, I’ve expanded the all-time popularity list to 25. But first here are the top 10 posts of the last two months on the basis of readership:

1. Backstage with Billy Collins

2. ‘We were in the open’

3. What came next for Sturtevant and the Fighting Fifth

4. A Gettysburg veteran who knew the battlefield by heart

5. Robert Caro’s relentless inquiry

6. A mother’s dying wish, a son’s destiny

7. The rise and fall of James Willis Patterson

8. In war and peace

9. Finding Private Lamprey: the sequel

10. A temporary grave

And here are the top 25 all-time, ranging in hits from 511 to 120. The numbers in parentheses are last month's rankings:

1. Urgent! Telegram from Gettysburg (1)

2. Farewell, my teacher (2)

3. Exeter’s Civil War general (3)

4. The soldier’s story behind the love story, Part I (5)

5. Did Abraham Lincoln really free the slaves? (4)

6. A Gettysburg journal (—)

7. Faces of Fort Wagner, Olustee and Andersonville (6)

8. The Civil War: ‘It was not my fault,’ Buchanan insists (7)

9. Unpacking the new ‘Gettysburg’ (10)

10. Backstage with Billy Collins (13)

11. Harnessing the power of the telling detail (8)

12. Gallery: Faces of the Fighting Fifth (part one) (9)

13. Kennedy gave FDR too much credit, shortchanged Ike (12)

14. My friend Chester (11)

15. The soldier’s story behind the love story, Part II (14)

16. How did Lincoln Republicans morph into Obama Democrats? (15)

17. July 2, 1863, Rose’s Woods, Gettysburg

18. Emails from afar and a happy coincidence

19. History’s touch

20. A gruesome death

21. Gallery: Old soldiers (2), a New England brigade

22. A riddle wrapped up in an enigma

23. A kick in the pants at Chancellorsville

24. Gallery 2: Faces of the Fighting Fifth

25. ‘Curses to Old Abe’