Department No. 2 Podcast and Other News

Happy almost 2026! I have not posted anything on this site this year. As I wrote a few years ago, most of my activity is on my Western Theater site while I transition this one to a more personal outreach tool. With that said, I encourage you to check out the WTCW site. It is the only site that covers the Western Theater of the Civil War and has over 300 blog posts. If you like the posts on here, I know you will over there as well. There is a lot of Kentucky content that is not found on this site and written by others. If you are looking for Perryville, Columbus, early war actions, or late war guerrilla activity, you can find it there, plus all kinds of other topics.

You will also find info on our podcast, The Department No. 2 Podcast. As most of the readers know, the Department No. 2 was the Confederacy's name for the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River--in essence, the Western Theater. We have over 25 episodes for you to enjoy and a lot of them are Kentucky focused.

Click HERE for more info on the podcast.

We also have a few tours coming up in 2026. You can find a list of them HERE, but we have events at Fort Donelson, Corydon, Indiana, Richmond, and Perryville. I also plan on having a tour at some point this year that covers the Battle of Sacramento and the Battle of Sutherlan'ds Hill (Owensboro).

For most of 2025, I have been indexing books for other authors, or working on my next one, which focuses on the 1861-1862 war in the Western Theater. As of right now, it's at 43,000 words. Still a long way to go. There is so much material and events to think about and put into context, but I think it will be something appreciated by Civil War students as it is something that has never been written about on its own. As for the indexing work, I'll put a post out soon that lists the one's that have come out or are about to so you can pick them up. They are all pretty good, some excellent.

If you are a regular visitor here or to the WTCW site we ask that you consider donating to cover site costs. You can do that through "Buy Me a Coffee." You can make it a one-time thing or recurring at any amount. If you want to give five bucks, we are very thankful. Also, any money that goes over what we pay for the subscriptions will be donated to battlefield preservation. Wix and Podcastle, the mediums we use to give you this Civil War content, have a tendency to raise their prices on a regular basis, and one site now costs what we used to pay for all three combined (This site, WTCW, and the podcast). We don't do this for the money, but we also don't like losing money! I hate having to even talk about that sort of thing, but sometimes it's necessary.

So that about covers the most important things for 2026. I will be more regular about updating stuff as it pertains to speaking dates and other events we have going on. As always, thank you for your support and encouragement. Some of you all have been visiting this site since it started several years ago, and I am very thankful!