about this blog
Hello! I’m Brian Downey and this is a webmaster’s web log taking you behind the scenes of my history website “Antietam on the Web” (AotW). I write about Digital History, the War, the battlefield, and related events in the blogosphere.
This is not a high-volume operation, but you can expect a major post or two most weeks. I also put up quickPosts in days between, observing on related news items and other current events.
I very much would like to hear from you. Please comment on anything that strikes your fancy. I make an effort to pay attention and usually respond quickly. If you’d like to email me privately, please use the handy AotW contact form.
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By way of further explanation, in my inaugural post I wrote
Just what we need… another blog.
I’ve started this one, a companion to Antietam on the Web, to catch some of the spin-off that comes from researching, writing, and coding for that site.
I have resisted blogging or participating much in other online communities, because I’m jealous of my time and energy. I figured if I had time to post on a blog or a board, I should instead have been writing or reading for the website.
This may still be true, but I find all sorts of good things bubble to the surface as I’m working on AotW - things that don’t get onto the site or necessarily belong there - and there’s nowhere to catch them. So here’s such a place.
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The illustration at the top of each blog page, going from pixels to picture–or vice versa– is from a War-era tintype called New York Zouaves. The group below are from a photograph of President Lincoln and General McClellan with some of his officers taken near Sharpsburg, Maryland, in October 1862.
