ACW: You're in Command Now, Mr.Fog!

When I was a teenager I was something of a prodigious reader, mostly fantasy epics. However I recall faced with one lengthy train journey from Bristol to Edinburgh picking up a J.T.Edson book at Temple Meads station. Whilst I enjoyed watching westerns, as a literary genre it never really appealed (and strangely still doesn't), but the book, You're in Command Now, Mr.Fog, wasn't a western per se, but one of Edson's books set in the American Civil War.


The story, about Confederate cavalry officer, Dusty Fog (who returns in a number of Edson's post-ACW westerns), was great fun and I made an effort to hunt out more of the ACW adventures in various bookshops over the next couple of years. I recall picking up the likes of Under Stars and Bars and Kill Dusty Fog!, but in those pre-internet days it was hard to know how many there were set in the ACW and how many where about Dusty Fog and the Texas Light Cavalry (some ACW stories were about different characters).

Fortunately in this day and age it is a relatively simple process to find out this information and Goodreads provides a list of all 13 books in the series and a synopsis of each. I need to hunt out the few I bought in my youth, but there do appear to be a number I have never read which appear to be quite fun.

What brought this all to mind? Well I was messing about with the Perry ACW cavalry at lunchtime and inspired by something Iron Mitten did many moons ago inspired by a Rosemary Sutcliffe book, I think that the Texas Light Cavalry need bringing to the tabletop!