Biography

So why does history matter? That's a great question, one that I am asked from time to time, and one that I've considered myself. It is easy to fall back on the old George Santayana statement, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I think that familiar sentence should be expanded a little. "History is always repeating itself. We must study the past in order to know how to deal with the future."  For me, that is why history is important.

Our history in the United States is full of areas to study, areas from which we can learn: from the American Revolution, through the Civil War, and even to the Space Race.  I was first captivated by the Civil War era in the early 1980s. An uncle took me to a Civil War re-enactment, bought me a hat and jacket, and I got to carry a flag. Since I had grown up watching Westerns with my dad, it was a surreal experience for me. Here I was, surrounded by cannons and horses and swords. History had hooked me.

That youthful enthusiasm led me to learn everything possible about firearms, clothing, and tactics. I researched meticulously so that I could present programs at schools and answer the questions asked at events. Over the years, I gained an intimate knowledge of the life of a common Confederate soldier, how armies functioned in the field, and the culture of the time period. In addition to the mid-nineteenth century, my interpretive studies and programs have taken me to the 1780s and 1940s as I have delved into an array of often-overlooked topics, from the importance of taverns on the frontier of early America to the role of the Aircraft Warning Service in World War II. I thoroughly enjoy sharing these topics with the public at historic sites and events. I also enjoy learning about less well-known aspects of the past in order to bring them to life for people in the present.

Many of my writing projects have also grown from exploring less well-known topics and the need to correct vacuums in scholarship. In 1995, as my young bride attended graduate school, I spent countless hours in the library of Appalachian State University and quickly discovered a lack of material when it came to Confederate regiments. So I set out to write one, selecting the Thirty-seventh North Carolina Troops. That book was released in 2003, and others soon followed:  an account of the battle of Hanover Court House, Virginia (2006), a history of the Fifty-eighth North Carolina Troops (2010), the brigade-level account of the Branch-Lane Brigade (2018) and the story of the 39th Battalion Virginia Cavalry (2019).

While those projects addressed the need for materials related to battles and regiments, the need for community-based studies is also one I have sought to address with projects on North Carolina sites like Grandfather Mountain and specific counties and regions like the Toe River Valley and Avery, Watauga, Mitchell, and Caldwell counties.  Volumes like Civil War Charlotte (2012), Watauga County, North Carolina, in the Civil War (2013) and Capitals of the Confederacy (2015) have allowed me to combine community-focused research and Civil War history. I have also enjoyed the challenge of tackling statewide histories examining topics as diverse as the experiences of the state’s Confederate soldiers and the Old North State’s role in aviation history, a role far beyond the events at Kitty Hawk.

Overall, I have written twenty-nine books. In 2025, two titles will be released: Feeding Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Aviation in North Carolina. At present, I am working on a new look at the April 1864 battle of Plymouth, NC. If you are familiar with my work, it should come as no surprise that I write from the bottom up, from the perspective of individuals. Their lives and experiences, along with their communities, are equally as important as the grand sweeping narratives of the past. At the same time, I write for the general public. While my books are well-researched, meticulously documented, and entirely appropriate as scholarly sources, they are written for a public audience, not only academics. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to walk into a library or bookstore and find people reading one of my books, hopefully enriching their own lives as they learn about the places in which they live and the experiences of people in the past, including their ancestors.

In addition to books, I also write for publications like Civil War Times, America's Civil War, Gettysburg Magazine, Confederate Veteran, Camp Chase Gazette, Carolina Mountain Life, and the Tar Heel Junior Historian. I have appeared on several local television programs, and in 2016, in Blood and Fury: America's Civil War on the American Heroes Channel. In 2012, I wrote a preface for Sharyn McCrumb's re-release of Ghost Riders, a novel of the Blalocks and Western North Carolina.  I am a graduate of the University of Alabama, which honored me with the 2012 Alice Parker Award for Outstanding Literature and Arts. In 2010, I was named the North Carolina Historian of the Year by the North Carolina Society of Historians. That organization has also honored me with several other awards, as have the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. In 2015, my family was honored as the Volunteers of the Year for the Pisgah District, Blue Ridge Parkway, National Park Service.

We have lived in western North Carolina for 30 years. If I had time for a hobby, it would be photography, and I do get to capture a fair number of images of historic sites, battlefields, cemeteries, and old houses. Just like the words I write, those images help to capture the past, one fragment at the time.

 Michael's Interview on Civil War Talk Radio  |  Michael's latest article at America's Civil War

Thanks for visiting my page and for learning a little more about my work.