Arnie Bernstein: The Hoofs and Guns of the Storm: Chicago's Civil War Connections

While America's Civil War was fought on Confederate battlefields, Chicago played a crucial role in the Union's struggle toward victory. Arnie Bernstein's new book The Hoofs and Guns of the Storm: Chicago's Civil War Connections (2003, Lake Claremont Press) takes you through a whirlwind tour of 19th century events that created the foundation for modern-day Chicago. May 12th, 2004 as Arnie Bernstein visited the library to talk about this lively and well researched new work, which traces the Windy City's impact and importance as the center of the Northwest during the War Between the States.

Chicago native Arnie Bernstein earned a B.A. in Film Studies/Theater from Southern Illinois University and a Master's in Creative Writing from Columbia College. He now slings out copy for all sorts of venues, including corporate writing, articles for trade journals and popular culture magazines, public relations and marketing, video scripts, encyclopedias, and fiction. Along the way Arnie nabbed some cool honors including a Puffin Foundation grant for his fiction writing, winning a slot in the highly coveted Warner Brothers Comedy Writers Workshop, and a Regional Emmy Award nomination for his work in children's television. For more information about Arnie Bernstein, visit his web site at http://www.arniebernstein.com.

The Hoofs and Guns of the Storm is a lively, intelligent, and comprehensive guide to Civil War and Lincoln sites. Arnie Bernstein's collection is well researched, organized, and written. The result is a useful guidebook that will help Chicagoans and their many guests appreciate more deeply the Windy City's links to an important era in our national history. -Jean H. Baker, author of Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography

Expertly researched, crisply, even poetically written, Arnie Bernstein's literary tour of Civil War Chicago is historically enlightening and lots of fun for those who seek to rediscover the footsteps of our past in the geography of our present. -R. Craig Sautter, co-author of Inside the Wigwam: Chicago's Presidential Conventions 1860-1996