moving right along--or not!

Here is Mary CATherine, a true EE fan, as you can see. She frequently sleeps on my reference material, making it difficult to write. A couple of things have teeth marks where she decided to gnaw them. She is a good friend, though. She stays near and is encouraging.

I had not planned to do as much on the 20 City Tour as I am ending up with. It is sort of repetitive, but important because it made EE such a well-known person in his own right before he worked with/for Lincoln. Also, the whole militia movement--pre-Ruby Ridge, of course--is important for setting up the information about gathering troops to fill out the ranks in the Union Army. Lincoln asked for 70,000, and the regular Army had only 16,000. It was losing soldiers rapidly as many resigned and "went South." I think it is very necessary to try to explain the mindset of the country (or at least the Northeast) at this time, as it helps make sense of what happens later. So, it is an added chapter, but maybe a shorter one. It is going along nicely so far, with a lot of great old newspaper articles to read. Summer is too short!