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There are a couple of roles I haven't played that I want to. I would love to play Shiloh.

My second book, Follow Me Down had some success, got good critical notices, went into a second printing and things like that, but Shiloh was by far the most successful of those first five novels.

The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle.

Battle is the soldier's vital breath! Peace turns him into a stooping asthmatic. War makes him a whole man again, and gives him the heart, strength, and vigor of a hero.

Next to a lost battle, nothing is so sad as a battle that has been won.

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.

The events of the Civil War are so odd, ferocious, and poignant that fictional characters do well simply to inhabit them.

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.

In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

War is tragedy. The great war stories are tragedies. It's the failure of diplomacy. 'War and Peace,' 'A Farewell to Arms,' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Those are some of the greatest tragedies.