Kraig W. McNutt Bloghistorian [email protected] Director, The Center for the Study of the American Civil War Originally from Louisville, McNutt is a resident of Franklin, Tennessee and has been seriously researching and studying the American Ci vil War for over 25 years. Since he prefers making his work accessible through digital formats he suggests the title bloghistorianbest captures what he does. His work can be found in numerous blogs, research papers, articles, lectures, YouTube, photo essays, and the screenplay mostly accessible at KraigMcNutt.com His BattleofFranklin.net is arguably the largest single battle-focused blog on the Internet. It receives tens of thousands of accesses a month. He started the Battle of Franklin Facebook Group in October 2009 and it has over 3,600 fans (as of July 2011). Besides blogging, researching and writing, McNutt enjoys digital photography. His podcast Grapevine Dispatches was the very first Civil War podcast launched in 2005. He can also frequently be seen giving free battlefield tours around Franklin. A frequent Civil War roundtable speaker/pres enter, McNutt also enjoys using his platform to raise support for histor ic preservation causes in Williamson County, and around the country. He is a direct descendant of a Union soldier who fought at Franklin and Nashville. He is a member of the SUVCW Fort Donelson Camp #62. McNutt holds undergraduate and advanced degrees in philosophy, communications, and Information Science from Indian a University and the University of Kentucky. He taught for five years on the college level. He founded and is the Director of The Center for the Study of the American Civil War which houses and archives his extensive and growing collection of original Civil War soldiers letters, diaries, newspapers and other ephemera. His blogs contain hundreds of original Civil War letter transcriptions that have been previously inaccessib le. Though not a professional historian by-choice, McNutt nonetheless brings a serious mind to the field, fueled by a passion stoked by the advice one of his favorite authors James I. Robertson, Jr., - once challenged him with, There is no history without emotion. To contact him email him at [email protected] McNutt has been mentored by l ong-time, respected and prolific historian-autho r Dr. Steven E. Woodworth, Professor at TCU. Kraig McNutt brings with him not only years of study and understanding, but the necessary passion to make the cold facts of history come alive. Driven by that passion, Kraig has honed his studies into scholarship and his scholarship into understanding. As the Civil War slips further and further into a dim past, we are fortunate to have Kraig breathing life back into the story. Robert Hicks, best-selling author of The Widow of the South