Russ Pritchard
Pritchard has been fascinated by Civil War history since childhood. He was given an ambrotype of an ancestor, Captain Caleb Baker Jones, Company I, 13th Tennessee Infantry Regiment, by his grandmother when he was eight years old. His family took him to the battlefield at Shiloh in 1952 and he discovered Francis Bannerman’s store in New York in 1958. Pritchard spent four years in college in Virginia visiting battlefields at every opportunity. He and C.A. Huey met in the late 1960’s at a gun show and their similar interests insured a long and lasting friendship.
Pritchard served as Executive Director of the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia for 20 years. He invited Huey to mount an exhibit of blockade material at the museum in 1994 and that exhibit became the catalyst for this book. Their relationship with Mike Nicholls, Tim Prince and Dean Thomas was nothing less than serendipity. Their combined research was used in the writing of The English Connection. Now retired, Pritchard lives in the country near Memphis, TN.