About Me
Why my interest in the Civil War? I suppose that would only be natural for someone who, as a kid, grew up only 30-miles from Shiloh National Military Park. In 1993 however, I discovered my maternal great-grandfather was a member of the 2nd Mississippi Infantry Regiment. That discovery is what finally “got the ball rolling” for me in a serious way. I am still working on a regimental history by the way, so I will keep you posted on my progress. I was born and raised in West Tennessee, near where my great grandfather moved following the Civil War. I served 20 years in both an enlisted and officer capacity in the United States Air Force. At the present time I still work in the defense industry as a systems engineer. I graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in Electrical Engineering. While still in the Air Force, I obtained an MBA from Baldwin-Wallace College. Later, after retiring and vowing not to allow any of my GI Bill educational benefits to go unused, I obtained a MA in history (with a specialty in Civil War Studies) in 1999 from American Military University.
About Coonewah Creek Publishing
Why the name "Coonewah Creek" for my publishing cover? Well, my great-grandfather fought for the 2nd Mississippi Infantry Regiment. His company was Company H...the Coonewah Rifles (often misspelled "Coonwah"). The name came from a creek in Pontotoc County, Mississippi where he was from. The name itself was apparently derived from the Chickasaw Native American tribe's language that populated the area in the 1840's. The most widely accepted translation is that in the Chickasaw language, "Coonewah" literally means "ripe polecat" or equivalently "smelly skunk." Thus the skunk logo. The word itself is pronounced either "KOO-nuh-wah" or "KOO-nee-wah." Personally, I prefer the first pronunciation.
