"The Battle of New Market, though a smaller conflict, represented a crucial moment in the Union's offensive movements in the spring of 1864 and became the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The results of the battle between Franz Sigel and John C. Breckinridge - with the Virginia Military Institute Cadets pushing the conflict in the Confederates' favor - altered the campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and the course of the American Civil War in Virginia."--Provided by publisher.

An “exciting and informative” account of the Civil War battle that opened the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, with illustrations included (Lone Star Book Review). Charles Knight’s Valley Thunder is the first full-length account in decades to examine the combat at New Market on May 15, 1864 that opened the pivotal Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who set in motion the wide-ranging operation to subjugate the South in 1864, intended to attack on multiple fronts so the Confederacy could no longer “take advantage of interior lines.” A key to success in the Eastern Theater was control of the Shenandoah Valley, an agriculturally abundant region that helped feed Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Grant tasked Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, a German immigrant with a mixed fighting record, and a motley collection of units numbering some 10,000 men to clear the Valley and threaten Lee’s left flank. Opposing Sigel was Maj. Gen. (and former US Vice President) John C. Breckinridge, who assembled a scratch command to repulse the Federals. Included in his 4,500-man army were Virginia Military Institute cadets under the direction of Lt. Col. Scott Ship, who’d marched eighty miles in four days to fight Sigel. When the armies faced off at New Market, Breckinridge told the cadets, “Gentlemen, I trust I will not need your services today; but if I do, I know you will do your duty.” The sharp fighting seesawed back and forth during a drenching rainstorm, and wasn’t concluded until the cadets were inserted into the battle line to repulse a Federal attack and launch one of their own. The Union forces were driven from the Valley, but would return, reinforced and under new leadership, within a month. Before being repulsed, they would march over the field at New Market and capture Staunton, burn VMI in Lexington (partly in retaliation for the cadets’ participation at New Market), and very nearly capture Lynchburg. Operations in the Valley on a much larger scale that summer would permanently sweep the Confederates from the “Bread Basket of the Confederacy.” Valley Thunder is based on years of primary research and a firsthand appreciation of the battlefield terrain. Knight’s objective approach includes a detailed examination of the complex prelude leading up to the battle, and his entertaining prose introduces soldiers, civilians, and politicians who found themselves swept up in one of the war’s most gripping engagements.

An “essential addition to serious students’ libraries” detailing the historic military offensive that helped sway the outcome of the American Civil War (Civil War News). In the late summer of 1864, Union General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant set one absolutely unconditional goal: to sweep Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley “clean and clear.” His man for the job: Maj. Gen. “Little Phil” Sheridan—a temperamental Irishman who’d proven himself just the kind of scrapper Grant loved. The valley had already played a major part in the war for the Confederacy as both the location of major early victories against Union attacks, and as the route used by the Army of Northern Virginia for its invasion of the North, culminating in the battle of Gettysburg. But when Sheridan returned to the Valley in 1864, the stakes heightened dramatically. For the North, the fragile momentum its war effort had gained by the capture of Atlanta would quickly evaporate. For Abraham Lincoln, defeat in the Valley could mean defeat in the upcoming election. And for the South, its very sovereignty lay on the line. Here, historians Davis and Greenwalt “weave an excellent summary of the campaign that will serve to introduce those new to the Civil War to the events of that ‘Bloody Autumn’ and will serve as a ready refresher for veteran stompers who are heading out to visit those storied fields of conflict” (Scott C. Patchan, author of The Last Battle of Winchester).

Twelve-year-old Benjy, in Virginia visiting his grandmother, meets the ghost of a Virginia Military Institute cadet who was killed in the Battle of New Market in 1864 and helps him recover his family's treasured gold watch.

CMH Pub. 70-24. First in a planned series of military "staff ride brochures." At head of title on title page: Self-Guided Tour. Discusses a Civil War battle which was fought in 1864 in Virginia and won by the Confederate forces. Describes twelve sites which were important to the battle and which may be explored at the site through-guided tours. Includes maps and sepia photographs. L.C. card 88-34357.

A gripping narrative of one of the Civil War’s most consequential engagements. In the spring of 1864, the newly installed Union commander Ulysses S. Grant did something none of his predecessors had done before: He threw his army against the wily, audacious Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia over and over again. At Spotsylvania Court House, the two armies shifted from stalemate in the Wilderness to slugfest in the mud. Most commonly known for the horrific twenty-two-hour hand-to-hand combat in the pouring rain at the Bloody Angle, the battle of Spotsylvania Court House actually stretched from May 8 to 21, 1864—fourteen long days of battle and maneuver. Grant, the irresistible force, hammering with his overwhelming numbers and unprecedented power, versus Lee, the immovable object, hunkered down behind the most formidable defensive works yet seen on the continent. Spotsylvania Court House represents a chess match of immeasurable stakes between two master opponents. This clash is detailed in A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May –21, 1864. A Season of Slaughter is part of the new Emerging Civil War Series offering compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War’s most important stories. The masterful storytelling is richly enhanced with hundreds of photos, illustrations, and maps. “[A] wonderful book for anyone interested in learning about the fighting around Spotsylvania Court House or who would like to tour the area. It is well written, easy to read, and well worth the price.” —Civil War News

A Civil War historian recounts the first battle between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—a bloody and horrifying conflict in the Wilderness of Virginia. Known simply as the Wilderness, soldiers called the seventy square miles of dense Virginian forest one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom.” Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror. Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the Overland Campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Thick underbrush made for difficult movement and low visibility. And these challenges were terrifyingly compounded by the outbreak of fires that burned casualties and left both sided blinded in a sea of smoke. Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said. Another called it “Hell itself.”