Favorite Puzzles: "Oh, I Wish He Was Ours," - Civil War Art by Mort Kunstler

This is one of my all-time favorite puzzles - for a lot of reasons - but mainly because I have spent so many hours reading Civil War history, visiting battlefield parks, and visiting Civil War museums that I feel a close kinship to soldiers on both sides of that terrible conflict.  It all started for me when my grandmother shared memories of her own grandfather, a man who survived the Civil War despite having seen action in a Louisiana infantry unit during some of the Civil War's major battles (Shiloh and Vicksburg, for instance).  It still amazes me sometimes that I heard stories from her that she had heard directly from him.  That really compresses time and helps me comprehend just how young a country the United States still is.

"Oh, I Wish He Was Ours" by White Mountain, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27 inches

Puzzles like this one are getting hard to find at anything resembling a reasonable price.  Why?  Look no further than that red battle flag up in the corner, and you will have your answer.  That flag just may be the most politically incorrect thing in this country right now because of how it's been misused by radical racist groups to intimidate minority populations.  I understand...but I love Mort Kunstler's Civil War art and do not believe that these puzzles should be taken off the market because of what a few idiots have done.  The folks at White Mountain will tell you that they just didn't sell well enough to justify prouction, but I have to wonder if there is not more to it than that.

"Oh, I Wish He Was Ours" is part of a whole series of Civil War produced by White Mountain, but interested collectors should be warned that, if they don't already own the puzzles, they will have to pay dearly for some of them on the collector's market ($50-$100 per puzzle).  

Here are some of the other Civil War puzzles produced by Kunstler and White Mountain:

Chamberlain's Charge, 1000 pieces, White Mountain

"The Civil War," 1000 pieces, White Mountain

"Magnolia Morning," 1000 pieces, White Mountain

"Generals Brought to Tears, " 1000 pieces, White Mountain 

"Model Partnership, " 1000 pieces, White Mountain

"Candlelight & Roses," 1000 pieces, White Mountain

I have only two others of the ones pictured here ("Soldiers Brought to Tears" and "The Civil War") and have been saving them for later. In the meantime, I'm always looking for reasonably priced copies of the others.

Wish me luck.