Product Description In the spring of 1862, Federal troops under the command of General George B. McClellan launched what was to be a coordinated, two-pronged attack on Richmond in the hope of taking the Confederate capital and bringing a quick end to the Civil War. The Confederate high command tasked Stonewall Jackson with diverting critical Union resources from this drive, a mission Jackson fulfilled by repeatedly defeating much larger enemy forces. His victories elevated him to near iconic status in both the North and the South and signaled a long war ahead. One of the most intriguing and storied episodes of the Civil War, the Valley Campaign has heretofore only been related from the Confederate point of view. With Shenandoah 1862, Peter Cozzens dramatically and conclusively corrects this shortcoming, giving equal attention to both Union and Confederate perspectives.
Based on a multitude of primary sources, Cozzens's groundbreaking work offers new interpretations of the campaign and the reasons for Jackson's success. Cozzens also demonstrates instances in which the mythology that has come to shroud the campaign has masked errors on Jackson's part. In addition, Shenandoah 1862 provides the first detailed appraisal of Union leadership in the Valley Campaign, with some surprising conclusions.
Moving seamlessly between tactical details and analysis of strategic significance, Cozzens presents the first balanced, comprehensive account of a campaign that has long been romanticized but never fully understood.
Stonewall in the Valley November 23, 2008 Of all the various authors currently writing Civil War history, I think Cozzens is by far the most readable. This book covers the entire campaign in the Shenadoah Valley up to the time Jackson's forces were pulled out and thrown into the defense of Richmond. you won't find anything here on Jackson's participation in those battles, as it falls outside of the scope of this book and it's just as well, as it wasn't exactly Jackson's shining hour.
The Valley campaign firmly established Jackson's reputation as one of the great military commanders in the South, and a beacon of hope in a very dark hour for the Confederate cause as well. But, you'll find he comes into considerable criticism as a commander throughout the book, especially for someone whose image has been carved into the side of a mountain down in Georgia, a literal iconic figure. It took a quite a bit of on the job training for Jackson to reach the brilliant peak of his career at Chancellorsville, and a lot of good men died on the way.
Watching Jackson develop as a commander is one of the more interesting aspects of this book, and one of its great strengths. He's probably the most eccentric of the great Civil War leaders. Almost no one under his command seems to have had any idea what was on his mind at any point during his campaigns, up to and including the other generals. Cozzens makes an interesting point that this may have been because he was all but incapable of expressing his thoughts verbally. It reminds me of a point in the Ken Burns' Civil War series, when Shelby Foote was talking about Jackson and someone tells him that one of his aides had been killed. According to Shelby, Jackson exclaimed "very commendable, very commendable", primarily as he knew he had to say something, but had no idea what to say. Jackson's strong Christian beliefs come into play in the book as well with several instances of Jackson criticising his commanders for using profane language. The image of Jackson pausing to pray to God for divine assistance during a particularly critical point in one battle is practically Old Testament.
Jackson pushed himself and his troops to the point of collapse, often for very limited results and never really accepted their physical limits or his own. He was particularly demanding of his subordinate officers and attempted to wreck the careers of two of his generals for their supposed failures in several battles. He also seems not to have understood at this point how to coordinate and deploy large units into battle.
However for all his faults, he was overwhelmingly the superior of most of the Union commanders he faced, and Cozzens does an exceptional job of giving the reader solid images of every one. Shields and Fremont in particular come in for well-deserved criticism. But Lincoln gets a fair amount as well, as at this stage he hadn't found dependable commanding generals and took a personal hand in directing the war. However, you get the clear idea from Cozzens that Jackson's reputation was built on fighting inferior generals, and the impression if Grant and Sherman had been in charge of the Union forces in the Valley, we would have a very different image of Jackson today.
This is a great book for the Civil War buff, you could hardly ask for better. It's probably more than a bit much for the average reader, but then if you're buying a book of this length on one campaign, you probably should rank yourself among the buffs. If you like this book and haven't already read Cozzen's other Civil War books, you definitely should.
Well Balanced Narrative of Jackson's Valley Campaign October 30, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've read all of Peter Cozzens' Civil War books. I started with Darkest Days of the War on Iuka and Corinth, moved on to his trilogy on the Kentucky / Tennessee / Georgia theater, and last read his biography of John Pope. All of them are good reads that should inspire any ACW buff. Cozzens includes the tactical minutae of each battle.
Cozzens' works have all focused on the western theater, although his Pope biography understandably spends a great deal of time on Second Bull Run. Shenandoah 1862 is Cozzens' first work focused entirely on an eastern campaign.
Now there have been a lot of works on Stonewall Jackson's valley campaign, so why would Cozzens bother writing on it? Everything I've read on the valley has focused on Jackson and the Confederate army, with authors acting as Stonewall admirers at best, cheerleaders at worst. Cozzens takes a much more balanced approach that will be familiar to anyone who has read his other works. He presents the Union side of the campaign with a thoroughness I've not seen in any other study, and the result is the best balanced account of the 1862 campaign I've ever read.
It's clear Cozzens admires Jackson's accomplishment, but he also faults some of Jacksons moves and traits as a commander. Cozzens avoids any lost cause hagiography of Jackson. Instead of reporting what contemporaries said about Jackson after the campaign, Cozzens focuses on Confederate letters, diaries, and journals written at the time. Even Stonewall Jackson, in the midst of his most famous campaign, had his detractors in the ranks. Jackson was never a good battlefield general, and Cozzens criticizes his tactical movements convincingly.
The most impressive thing about this book is the understanding Cozzens brings to Federal movements in the valley. Jackson won his campaign through deft movement and hard fighting, but he was helped by uncoordinated Union advances and decidedly second rate Union commanders. Fremont and Shields come in for some harsh criticism for their handling of Cross Keys and Port Republic, for example. But Cozzens seems to admire the leadership of Banks and McDowell, or at least to have a good appreciation for the limits under which they operated and some sympathy for their situations.
In sum then, Cozzens gives us the best account of the campaign to date. The book is a balanced look at the commanders, armies, movements, and battles in one of the most famous campaigns in American military history.
5 stars if you're a Civil War afficionado October 28, 2008 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a well-written, highly-detailed look at the Shenandoah campaign of Stonewall Jackson.
But I couldn't finish it. The level of detail vastly exceeded my level of interest.
If you're really into the Civil War and/or Stonewall Jackson, I highly recommend this book -- five stars. If your interest is more casual, you might want to give it a try from the library first because it may be (much) more than what you're looking for.
Shenandoah 1862 October 1, 2008 4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Cozzens has written a fine historical account of this campaign. He writes in an interesting and informative style. It is no easy task to write an accurate and informative book that covers such a broad topic. My only criticism of this book is that he states "It is my purpose to write the first balanced, and I trust comprehensive history of the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign, giving equal voice to both Union and Confederate sources..." I am not certain that he fulfilled his goal at least in his description of the battle of Port Republic. Cozzens's account follows too closely that of Robert Krick's in Conquering the Valley. As Robert Krick writes from the southern perspective, it seems that Cozzens needed to dig deeper into the accounts of the Union officers and men who fought in and about the Coaling. In particular, he overlooked a number of both wartime and postwar accounts written by the officers and men of both the 66th Ohio and Battery H, 1st Ohio Light artillery. Those officers and men describe a different version of events that occurred in the fight for the Coaling. Two guns of Huntington's Battery tore through the forming ranks of the 66th as that Ohio regiment was forming to counterattack. As the 66th swept into the Coaling, they would recapture the 5 remaining guns. Also lost in Cozzens's account is the broken command structure of the Union Artillery. The feud between the artillery officers Daum and Huntington is not explored. Also Cozzens does not appear to describe all of the Union guns that were delivering raking fire into the Coaling. In short, the description of the battle is not "comprehensive." In fairness to Cozzens, his book is on the 1862 Campaign and perhaps one can not expect an overly detailed account of the Port Republic battle. It seems that a balanced, comprehensive account of this battle has yet to be written.
Cozzens Comes East September 30, 2008 7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Peter Cozzens established his reputation as an author with a series of excellent western battle histories. Now he turns his attention to one of the classic campaigns in America's military history. "Stonewall" Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign is one of the best examples of what a smaller determined force can accomplish. The Robert G. Tanner and Gary W. Gallagher produced excellent campaign studies and Gary L. Ecelbarger is doing excellent work on individual battles. Tanner's book has long been considered the "standard work" by which all other books are judged. I am not ready to dethrone Tanner but I feel this is a real challenger for the title of best campaign study. This is a detailed history, omitting nothing of importance and including most of the smaller details that make history interesting. This is not a dry, detailed account that plods on page after dreary page. Cozzens' lively style combines first person accounts with his considerable skill as a storyteller. The result is a history unfolding as it happened, imparting the urgency the participants felt to the reader. We know the story BUT we always understand how limited their knowledge was at the time. This ability makes bad decisions understandable and it shows the problem with doing nothing. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is one of the pivotal figures of the early war. Lionized by many, he became a mythic heroic saintly leader. Cozzens gives us a very human Jackson. He is a complex person completely committed to the cause. He is a harsh taskmaster, prone to snap judgments and unforgiving. This portrait is neither unflattering nor idolizing. It seems to be completely honest, presenting the good and bad points that all men have. N. P. Banks is a mixed bag, with some very good points as a person but a poor general. He is given a fair treatment that refused to make him a fool or a hero. Freemont is himself, vain, a poor general and a fool. The portrayal is what he was and nothing can change that. The treatment of Lincoln and Stanton is fair. While condemned for overreacting the author recognizes they lost sight of what was important and concentrated on a secondary front. The handling of Garnett is excellent. The "reasons" Jackson found for the charges are well covered. This includes the personality problems and differences in what they saw as the role of second in command. The full story of the court martial and political maneuvers is not detailed within the book. The writing is excellent. Battles are detailed, well covered and very understandable. The reader has no problems understanding why a position must be held or taken. The author's conclusions are well presented and quite good. My only problem with this book is the maps. First, they were not completely proofed. Units in the battle are misidentified on the map. Second, maps need to be placed where they are needed. A map of the midpoint of a battle should not be placed at the start of the story. Likewise, one map cannot cover multiple unit positions with no indication of movement. I found this to be a constant problem when trying to follow the battle on the map. However, this is not a reason to bypass this excellent book. I feel this will become a classic account of this campaign. The book is informative and fun to read.
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