"Cozzens offers a magisterial examination of the Valley Campaign....He brings scrupulous research and a keen analytic eye....The result is a vigorous account that captures both Union and Confederate perspectives and brings much-needed modern interpretation to one of the war's most stories campaigns." -- Civil War Times Illustrated

 

"Shenandoah 1862 is a magnificent, well-documented study of one of the most important campaigns of the Civil War." -- The Washington Times

 

"Sure to become the standard work on the campaign, this book is strongly recommended for all collections." -- Library Journal

 

"Cozzens is a master of Civil War military history.  He deploys a large body of unfamiliar primary material in this detailed analysis of a campaign less one-sided than the accepted view that it represented Union blundering and the triumph of Confederate planning and execution, signaling the emergence of one of history's great generals, Stonewall Jackson." -- Publishers Weekly

 

"Peter Cozzens has again produced a definitive account of a major Civil War campaign. As he did in his splendid chronicles of Stones River, Chickamauga, and Chattanaooga, he has now written the most comprehensive study yet of Stonewall Jackson's operations in the fabled Shenandoah Valley....Thanks to excellent use of soldiers' accounts, battle descriptions are so vivid that one feels present on the battlefield. These alone make the book a delightful read." -- Newsletter of the  Society of Civil War Historians

 

"Cozzens not only augments this dearth in the literature on the campaign, he also corrects many of the historiography's shortcomings by presenting the first balanced analysis from both the Union and Confederate perspectives. A welcome, much-needed addition to Civil War campaign studies.  -- Choice 

 

"Thought provoking...Civil War buffs will gobble this hefty volume and historians will dive in to agree and or disagree with Cozzens' cogent analysis....It doesn't get much better than Peter Cozzens with his trademark combination of solid research swept along by 'you were there' immediacy." -- [Knoxville] Tennessee Advocate

 

"As campaign literature this book stands outs as a superlative narrative. The prose is scintillating, [and] the characters and their environment vidily portrayed. Shenandoah 1862 will and should stand as the definitive work of the campaign."

-- Gary Ecelbarger, author of Three Days in the Shenandoah: Stonewall Jackson at Front Royal and Winchester

 

"The research is exhaustive, much of it in sources never before tapped.  The writing is, as always with Cozzens, very fine indeed. And the story he has to tell, of course, is simply one of the best of the Civil War." -- William C. Davis, History Book Club Review 

 

"Drawing from an impressive array of both Union and Confederate primary sources, Peter Cozzens has produced the most comprehensive and balanced study of the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign to date. A fascinating, in-depth work of scholarship--and a great read!" -- Kent Masterson Brown, author of Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign

 

 

"In this well-researched study...Cozzens has produced the most detailed account we are likely to see on the Shenandoah Valley Campaign." -- James I. Robertson, Jr., author of Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend

 

"Cozzens uncovered a gratifying body of new primary source material and provides a fresh narrative of a major Civil War campaign." -- Robert K. Krick, author of Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Shenandoah 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008).  621 pages. 13 illustrations. 13 maps.  

$35