Forthcoming In May---The Complete Gettysburg Guide For Walking and Driving the Battlefield

The Complete Gettysburg Guide: Walking And Driving Tours of the Battlefield, Town, Cemeteries, Field Hospital Sites, and other Topics of Historical Interest by J. David Petruzzi and Steven Stanley, Savas Beatie Publishing, 320 pages, 70 maps, photographs, index, bibliography, $39.95.

The Complete Gettysburg Guide is the first and only of its kind - this scholarly full-color book contains complete walking and driving tours of the June 26 skirmishes, the entire battlefield (much more than the park's auto tour provides), East Cavalry Field, the battles of Hunterstown and Fairfield, the National Cemetery and Evergreen Cemetery, the field hospital sites, and even a special tour of all the known rock carvings on the battlefield. Written by noted Gettysburg scholar J. David Petruzzi, the book features the beautiful photography and maps of Steven Stanley, widely acclaimed for his cartographic work for the Civil War Preservation Trust and "America's Civil War" magazine. Even GPS coordinates for many outlying stops and spots are included, making this guide the easiest to use.

Table of Contents

Introduction by J. David Petruzzi and Steven Stanley
Foreword by Eric A. Campbell, Gettysburg National Military Park Ranger/Historian
Helpful Hints for using the Guide
Overview of the Battle and Campaign of Gettysburg
Tour of the Marsh Creek skirmish and Witmer Farm skirmish, June 26, 1863
Tour of the First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg
Tour of the Second and Third Day of the Battle of Gettysburg
Tour of the July 2 fight at Brinkerhoff's Ridge and July 3 battle at East Cavalry Field
Tour of the July 2 battle of Hunterstown
Tour of the July 3 battle of Fairfield
Tour of Historical Sites in the town of Gettysburg
Tour of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg
Tour of Gettysburg's Evergreen Cemetery
Tour of Rock Carvings on the battlefield
Tour of Field Hospital sites
Bibliography
Index

Text Source: The Complete Gettysburg Guide

CWL: A copy is on pre-order at Amazon.com and CWL will immediately open the box when it comes. Though CWL winces at any media with the words 'Complete' or 'Definitive' in the titles, it is likely that this book will be the best of its kind to date and will probably be essential to those aspiring to take the Gettysburg licensed battlefield guide exam.

The Best Interests of All Children

March has seen serious and thorough studies on underreported aspects of the mistreatment of immigrants in the U.S. Last week, I blogged on recent coverage of violations of the reproductive rights of immigrant women in detention. This week, my topic is the devastating effects that contemporary immigration law and policies can have on children of undocumented immigrant parents (about which I've also blogged here and here). The law firm Dorsey & Whitney published this week a painstakingly researched report, Severing a Lifeline: The Neglect of Citizen Children in America's Immigration Enforcement Policy detailing the barriers to family unity created by immigration law and the impact of immigration raids and other harsh enforcement policies on citizen children. They tell the paradigmatic story of one young boy affected by the raids:

Miguel (a pseudonym) was a second-grade student attending elementary school in Worthington, Minnesota. His mother, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, was employed at the Swift & Company plant in Worthington. Miguel was described by his teacher as a “happy little boy,” making real progress in school ... until December 12, 2006. On that day, armed agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) raided the Swift plant in Worthington, detaining Miguel’s mother and more than 200 other immigrants who came to this rural community in southwestern Minnesota seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Returning home after school, Miguel discovered his mother and father missing, and his two-year-old brother alone.
For the next week, Miguel stayed at home caring for his brother, not knowing what had become of his parents. Not until a week after the raid, when his grandmother was able to make her way to Worthington to care for her frightened grandchildren, was Miguel able to return to school. According to his teacher, this previously “happy little boy” had become “absolutely catatonic.” His attendance became spotty at best. His grades plummeted. At the end of the school year, Miguel was not able to advance to the third grade with the rest of his class.

The report calls for a reassessment of immigration law to take into account the best interests of the child in determining whether to deport their parents. In an op-ed in Ms. magazine, Prof. Patricia Zavella (pictured right) presents a similar call for a feminist perspective on immigration reform -- one that would prioritize the unity of families and the best interests of children caught up in the inequities of immigration enforcement. The Child Citizen Protection Act, H.R. 182, would do just this by allowing immigration judges to weigh the best interests of the U.S. citizen children in their parents' removal hearings, authorizing judges to decline deportation where it would be clearly against the best interests of the child. The bill seems a quixotic hope, but the horror stories recounted in the Dorsey & Whitney report make it all too clear that our immigration system is shamefully broken and needs fixing before more innocent children are harmed.