Winter break

Monique and I at Point Loma in San Diego. The picture was taken by our old friend Ching-chang Hsiao.  

As you can probably guess from recent posts, we have just returned from San Diego, where we spent a lovely week’s break from New Hampshire winter. Winter was still here when we returned – from a mid-60s takeoff last Tuesday morning to 5 degrees in Concord that night, then a snowstorm and plenty of shoveling Thursday and Friday.

Here are the top 10 blogposts of the last two months as measured by the number of times they have been called up by readers. Obviously many readers liked Elias Nason’s diary, which I condensed and put up in three parts, but I’m also heartened to see that four non-Civil War posts also made the list. I intend to continue to broaden the blog without neglecting its Civil War focus. I’m working on several posts with that goal in mind.

1. A gift from the heart

2. Life is a valuable sacrifice

3. New Year’s Day in ‘The Pen’

4. Richard Ager, storyteller

5. Elias Nason’s 1863 Exeter diary

6. Christmas!

7. He was a friend of mine

8. Van Ronk on Bobby and Joan and Paul and Artie

9. His march is done, his camp is here

10. (tie) Henry H. Pearson

              Elias Nason’s 1862 Exeter diary

              EliasNason’s 1861 Exeter diary

And here are the top 25 all-time, ranging in hits from 537 to 155. 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. A Gettysburg journal (4)

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

6. The soldier’s story behind the love story, Part I (6)

7. A Gettysburg veteran who knew the battlefield by heart (10)

8. Unpacking the new ‘Gettysburg’ (7)

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

10. Faces of Fort Wagner, Olustee and Andersonville (9)

11. A gift from the heart (11)

12. Gallery: Faces of the Fighting Fifth (part one) (13t)

13. (tie) Backstage with Billy Collins (12)

      Kennedy gave FDR too much credit, shortchanged Ike (15)

15. History’s touch (13t)

16. The soldier’s story behind the love story, Part II  (18)

17. Harnessing the power of the telling detail (16)

18. My friend Chester (17)

19. Killing the Southerners with kindness (–)

20. Gallery: Old soldiers (2), a New England brigade (20)

21. July 2, 1863, Rose’s Woods, Gettysburg (19)

22. One school’s proud Civil War heritage (23t)

23. A riddle wrapped up in an enigma (21t)

24. How did Lincoln Republicans morph into Obama Democrats? (21t)

25. (tie) A gruesome death (23t)    

            ‘Curses to Old Abe’ (25)