Several years ago I first posted on this message board hoping to find information on Dan Showalter, the commander of the 1st Texas Cavalry, Arizona Brigade. That inquiry opened some really productive doors. As the direct result of that and other research, I was able to produce a full museum exhibition on Dan Showalter -- a very much forgotten figure -- which was presented at Drum Barracks Civil War Museum in Wilmington, California, from November 2011 through August 2012. For those of you who don't know, Drum Barracks was the Union Army base (largest and most modern in the country at the time) built by Lincoln to keep Southern California and the open Los Angeles Harbor from going to the Confederacy -- and my exhibit was the very first ever at that site dedicated to a Confederate.

Following the exhibit, I began a blog on Dan Showalter, which can still be seen at http://caarchrebel.blogspot.com. Subsequent to that, having met and become good friends with Southern California historian Gene Armistead, Gene and I have co-authored the first full biography on Dan Showalter, which is presently under consideration for publication at Texas A&M University. We both feel that this book will not only be the first full biography of this fascinating historical figure, but will add significant information to the canon on both the history of California at the outbreak of the Civil War and to that of the war itself in West Texas.

So a thanks to this website and those who over time have contributed information about Showalter, and I would invite anyone interested to follow the progress of our efforts toward publication on the blog site noted above.