I am off for a few days and am using the time to work on the book about Civil War Era New York. The goal is to write 4000 words over the week. Things are proceeding along and while it will be a push I think I can do it. Today as I do on many Sundays I went over to Green-Wood Cemetery. It was a beautiful day. I turned around and saw the headstone of none other than Cornelius Rea Agnew, one of the founders and leaders of both the United States Sanitary Commission and the Union League Club of New York. I had never seen this one before. As it turns out, he is buried just down the hill from the Roosevelt family plot. It was a reminder that what I’m doing is not theoretical, that these were real people and that they lived, worked, and performed their functions in the very vicinity where I do the same today.

(bottom image/Library of Congress)