R.E. Thomas Online

Hey folks — I do the maps for the Stonewall Goes West trilogy on my own. Since I’ve been moving, I haven’t been able to get to preparing that last map for the Battle of Lewisburg as of yet.

Many of my readers have commented I do my battles well enough that they didn’t actually need the maps to follow the action, so hopefully my tardiness won’t detract from anyone’s enjoyment of Mother Earth, Bloody Ground. I hope to get back to making that map available once I’m not looking at boxes every day.

Sometimes it happens that my whiskey writing crosses path with my Civil War interests, as was the case with the story of Charles Weller, brother of whiskey legend W.L. Weller.

Today, I have another such intersection. I published an article about Paul Caldwell and his company, Confederate Stills of Alabama. His company is named as such because Caldwell has an ancestor who fought in the 34th Alabama Infantry.

My research road trip through the Mid-South is finished, and as in the past, I must tip my hat to a handful of eateries. Eating right while on the road in America is notoriously difficult, so I’m always thankful when I find a place that serves real, wonderful food that doesn’t make me feel like I’ve driven another nail into my coffin. This time around, three joints receive this special shout-out:

• King Neptune, Gulf Shores, AL: Superb gumbo and a platter of raw oysters that easily ranks in my Top 5 oysters on the half shell for all-time.
• Bates House of Turkey, Greenville, AL: This restaurant is associated with a free-range turkey farm under the same name, and the latter ships a range of turkey products. The open-faced turkey sandwich they served up to my wife and I really hit the spot, and enabled our speedy recovery from a bad blunder the previous day that had us both “gone flop-doggie.”
• Pope’s Cafe, Shelbyville, TN: An actual surviving meat-and-three style joint on a small town courthouse square! I went for a meat-and-two: chipped roast beef, mashed potatoes, and green beans, plus fresh hoecakes. It was a simply delightful Southern meal.