The product of a symposium held in 1989, this book of essays provides an introduction to the cardinal aspects of an important American Civil War campaign. The authors disagree on the relative importance of certain operations or leaders in the valley.

Shenandoah follows a Southern family through the trials and tribulations of the American Civil War. The long-absent Titus Brannon returns home to find that his wife has remarried.

The author "brings to life the courage, recklessness, heartbreak, and deprivation of the (Shenandoah) Valley Campaign and the battles to the east of the Blue Ridge" ("The Commercial Appeal"). 60 photos.

A significant part of the Civil War was fought in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, especially in 1864. Books and articles have been written about the fighting that took place there, but they generally cover only a small period of time and focus on a particular battle or campaign. This work covers the entire year of 1864 so that readers can clearly see how one event led to another in the Shenandoah Valley and turned once-peaceful garden spots into gory battlefields. It tells the stories of the great leaders, ordinary men, innocent civilians, and armies large and small taking part in battles at New Market, Chambersburg, Winchester, Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek, but it primarily tells the stories of the soldiers, Union and Confederate, who were willing to risk their lives for their beliefs. The author has made extensive use of memoirs, letters and reports written by the soldiers of both sides who fought in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864.

One of the most intriguing and storied episodes of the Civil War, the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign has heretofore been related only from the Confederate point of view. Moving seamlessly between tactical details and analysis of strategic significance, Peter Cozzens presents a balanced, comprehensive account of a campaign that has long been romanticized but little understood. He offers new interpretations of the campaign and the reasons for Stonewall Jackson's success, demonstrates instances in which the mythology that has come to shroud the campaign has masked errors on Jackson's part, and provides the first detailed appraisal of Union leadership in the Valley Campaign, with some surprising conclusions.

Jubal A. Early?s disastrous battles in the Shenandoah Valley ultimately resulted in his ignominious dismissal. But Early?s lesser-known summer campaign of 1864, between his raid on Washington and Phil Sheridan?s renowned fall campaign, had a significant impact on the political and military landscape of the time. By focusing on military tactics and battle history in uncovering the facts and events of these little-understood battles, Scott C. Patchan offers a new perspective on Early?s contributions to the Confederate war effort?and to Union battle plans and politicking. ø Patchan details the previously unexplored battles at Rutherford?s Farm and Kernstown (a pinnacle of Confederate operations in the Shenandoah Valley) and examines the campaign?s influence on President Lincoln?s reelection efforts. He also provides insights into the personalities, careers, and roles in Shenandoah of Confederate general John C. Breckinridge, Union general George Crook, and Union colonel James A. Mulligan, with his ?fighting Irish? brigade from Chicago. Finally, Patchan reconsiders the ever-colorful and controversial Early himself, whose importance in the Confederate military pantheon this book at last makes clear.

No section of the United States furnishes a fuller picture of the extraordinary operations of two American armies, pitted against each other for four long years, than does the beautiful "Valley of Virginia," from Harper's Ferry south to Staunton. Its most important city, Winchester, in the lower valley, was occupied or abandoned sixty-eight times by the troops of both armies, as has been said by men of the period of 1861 to 1865, still living there. Indeed, that city changed commanders so frequently and so suddenly that it became customary for the inhabitants to ascertain each morning, before leaving their dwellings, which flag was flying--the Stars and Stripes or the Stars and Bars. Aside from its superb location, framed in by the Blue Ridge on the east and the Alleghenies on the west, the bottom lands watered by the two branches of the Shenandoah on either side of the main valley, it produced wonderful crops of grain and droves of horses, cattle and swine, proving a bountiful granary to either army that occupied it. -- Preface.