Alan, I became a "trivialist" because when I first began studying Arkansas troops in the Civil War there was very little available in the way of print sources.

I've got a dozen or so books on the Battle of Gettysburg. One is a 250+ page book just about the third day of the battle. I've got one that covers only the retreat back to Virginia. One is devoted exclusively to a study of Confederate casualties. Anyone who wants to study the battle of Gettysburg has more sources available than you can shake a stick at. Not so with the TMD.

So, in order to satisfy my interest in the Trans-Mississippi theater, I had to do my own research. Fortunately, in recent years we're finally starting to see some excellent work being published -- Bill Shea, David Haimerl, Jim McGhee, just to name a few. I'm just as proud as I can be that the internet has enabled me to share my years of research of TMD trivia with such great historians.