Every Civil War buff has heard of the Battle of Chantilly, the bloody 1862 engagement fought in a driving rainstorm only twenty miles from Washington that claimed the lives of two of the Union's most promising generals. Yet few have known the full story of courage and human drama because no one has ever produced a lively and historically accurate account of the battle-until now. Tempest at Ox Hill compellingly evokes this pivotal battle of the war, in which the Union army faced annihilation after Robert E. Lee's overwhelming victory at Second Bull Run. At Chantilly, Virginia, on September 1, 1862, a small Union rearguard faced down some of Lee's best generals. The retreating main Union army, and Washington, were saved, but at a frightening human cost, including the deaths of two Union generals -- the promising Isaac Stevens and the dashing Philip Kearny, a Mexican War veteran who had also served with Napoleon III's imperial guard. And around these two Union generals lay nearly twelve hundred American soldiers, both blue and gray, dead fighting for their chosen cause. Tempest at Ox Hill captures the moment, the courage, and the carnage unforgettably.

During the summer of 1862, a Confederate resurgence threatened to turn the tide of the Civil War. When the Union?s earlier multitheater thrust into the South proved to be a strategic overreach, the Confederacy saw its chance to reverse the loss of the Upper South through counteroffensives from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi. Benjamin Franklin Cooling tells this story in Counter-Thrust, recounting in harrowing detail Robert E. Lee?s flouting of his antagonist George B. McClellan?s drive to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond and describing the Confederate hero?s long-dreamt-of offensive to reclaim central and northern Virginia before crossing the Potomac. ø Counter-Thrust also provides a window into the Union?s internal conflict at building a successful military leadership team during this defining period. Cooling shows us Lincoln?s administration in disarray, with relations between the president and field commander McClellan strained to the breaking point. He also shows how the fortunes of war shifted abruptly in the Union?s favor, climaxing at Antietam with the bloodiest single day in American history?and in Lincoln?s decision to announce a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Here in all its gritty detail and considerable depth is a critical moment in the unfolding of the Civil War and of American history.

The first-ever popular account of a tide-turning Civil War battle that saved the Union capital-but at a horrific price

A map-based analysis of the Second Bull Run Campaign, detailing troop movements, battles, and strategies with full-color cartography and insightful commentary. The Maps of Second Bull Run: An Atlas of the Second Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign from the Formation of the Army of Virginia Through Chantilly, June 26–September 1, 1862 continues Bradley M. Gottfried’s efforts to study and illustrate the major campaigns of the Civil War. This is the tenth book in the ongoing Savas Beatie Military Atlas Series. President Abraham Lincoln’s frustration with George B. McClellan’s inability to defeat Robert E. Lee and capture Richmond dramatically increased after the unsuccessful Seven Days’ Battles. In response, Lincoln combined three small armies into the new Army of Virginia and placed it under Maj. Gen. John Pope, who had overseen several successes in the Western Theater. Pope’s aggressiveness and McClellan’s passivity on the Peninsula convinced Lee to send Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s wing of the Army of Northern Virginia to confront Pope. A bloody battle at Cedar Mountain on August 9 halted Pope’s move south, and Jackson’s raid on the vast stores at Manassas Junction triggered another confrontation, this time at Kettle Run. When McClellan’s troops abandoned the Peninsula, Lee moved his other wing under James Longstreet rapidly north. Pope missed an opportunity to prevent the junction of Lee’s wings by not stopping Longstreet at Thoroughfare Gap. The battle of Second Bull Run began on the evening of August 28 when Jackson tangled with Union troops at the Brawner Farm. Pope spent much of the next day hammering Jackson’s front, with no idea that Longstreet was arriving on the field. The Union assaults continued on August 30 until Longstreet launched a massive assault that rolled up the Union left flank and collapsed Pope’s army. The retreat was briefly interrupted by some of Jackson’s units at Chantilly, which ended the campaign. The Maps of Second Bull Run plows new ground by breaking down the entire campaign into 24 map sets or “action sections,” enriched with 122 detailed full-page color maps. These cartographic originals bore down to the regimental and battery level. They include the march to and from the battlefields and virtually every significant event in between, including cavalry actions. At least two—and as many as ten—maps accompany each map set. Keyed to each piece of cartography is a full-facing page of detailed text describing the units, personalities, movements, and combat (including quotes from eyewitnesses) depicted on the accompanying map, all of which make the cavalry actions come alive. This presentation allows readers to easily find a map and text on any portion of the sprawling campaign. Serious students will appreciate the extensive endnotes and complete orders of battle and take the book with them to the battlefields. A final bonus is that the maps unlock every other book or article written on any aspect of the campaign. Perfect for the easy chair or for stomping the hallowed grounds, The Maps of Second Bull Run is a seminal work that belongs on the bookshelf of every serious and casual student of the battle.

When A. Wilson Greene released his respected Whatever You Resolve to Be: Essays on Stonewall Jackson in 1992, he little realized the interest in the popular Southern general that would explode in its wake. In recent years, Jackson has been the subject of biographies, military studies, and a major motion picture, Gods and Generals. Interpretations and perceptions of Jackson have changed as a result.In response to this interest, Greene’s outstanding look at Stonewall Jackson is once again available. Whatever You Resolve to Be contains five essays exploring both the personal and the military sides of the legendary military leader. A new introductory essay by Greene is also included.In that introduction, Greene surveys the research on Jackson that followed the initial release of his book. He includes his frank observations about how this recent scholarship has both vindicated and sometimes called into question his original assertions about the general. He also discusses the depiction of Jackson in Gods and Generals. The essays cover three primary topics: Jackson’s life, his gifts and flaws as a military commander, and his performance in three battles—the Seven Days, Second Manassas, and Fredericksburg. Greene’s portrayal is a balanced, extensively researched study of this most praised of Civil War heroes.Whatever You Resolve to Be remains as relevant today as when it was first published. Greene stays primarily true to his original observations on the general, despite new revisionist interpretations. For scholars and non-scholars alike, this book should be the starting point for any understanding of Stonewall Jackson.

The 21st North Carolina Troops (11th North Carolina Volunteers) was one of only two Tar Heel Confederate regiments that in 1865 could boast "From Manassas to Appomattox." The 21st was the only North Carolina regiment with Stonewall Jackson during his 1862 Valley Campaign and remained with the same division throughout the war. It participated in every major battle fought by the Army of Northern Virginia except the 1864 Overland Campaign, when General Lee sent it to fight its own intense battles near New Bern and Plymouth. This book is written from the perspective of the 1,942 men who served in the regiment and is filled with anecdotal material gleaned from more than 700 letters and memoirs. In several cases it sheds new light on accepted but often incorrect interpretations of events. Names such as Lee, Jackson, Hoke, Trimble, Hill, Early, Ramseur and Gordon charge through the pages as the Carolina regiment gains a name for itself. Suffering a 50 percent casualty rate over the four years, only 67 of the 920 young men and boys who began the war surrendered to Grant at its end.

"If President Lincoln could have unmade a general, perhaps he would have started with Samuel Peter "Sourdough" Heintzelman, whose early military successes were overshadowed by a prickly disposition and repeated Union defeats during the Civil War." "By the time his friend Robert E. Lee left Arlington to lead a Rebel army against the bluecoats, Heintzelman had already seen duty in Mexico, established Fort Yuma in California in 1850, mined for silver in Arizona, and ably led U.S. forces on the Texas-Mexico border during the 1859-60 Cortina War. During the Civil War, he was in the forefront of the fighting at First Bull Run and the disastrous 1862 Peninsula Campaign. He commanded the III Corps of the Army of the Potomac at the siege of Yorktown and in the ferocious fighting at Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Oak Grove, Savage's Station, Glendale, and Malvern Hill. Although he aspired to succeed Gen. George B. McClellan, he was relieved of his command after his troops were badly mauled at Second Bull Run. After demonstrating his inability to guard the southern approaches to Washington, D.C., from Virginia guerillas, he spent the latter part of the war administering prison camps in the Midwest, keeping a watchful eye on Copperhead subversives, and quarreling with more than one disgruntled governor. In early Reconstruction Texas, Heintzelman struggled with the conflict between former Secessionists and Radical Republicans."--BOOK JACKET.

Was the Civil War preordained to last four years or were there reasons why neither side could land a knockout punch? From the outset, both North and South had anticipated a brief conflict but despite more than 50 bloody battles neither could force a decisive conclusion. For most of the war, these battles followed a pattern: the victors claimed the field and the vanquished retreated to rest, resupply and fight another day. Some generals began to realize that pursuit to capture or destroy the retreating enemy was needed to end the war--not an easy task. Taking a fresh look at the tactics that characterized many major combat actions in the war, this book examines the performance of unsuccessful (sometimes insubordinate) commanders and credits two generals with eventually seeing the need for organized pursuit.

This volume is the essential guide to the Manassas battlefields, site of two of the Civil War’s critical campaigns. Ethan S. Rafuse, a distinguished scholar of the Civil War, provides a clearly organized, thorough, and uniquely insightful account of both campaigns, along with expert analysis and precise directions for armchair traveler and battlefield visitor alike. The July 1861 Battle of First Manassas and the August 1862 Battle of Second Manassas unequivocally influenced the course and outcome of the Civil War. The first battle dealt a decisive blow to hopes that the inexperienced armies of the North and the South could bring about a quick military resolution of the secession crisis. The second battle was the climactic engagement of a spectacular campaign that carried the war to the outskirts of Washington DC and marked the coming of age of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Manassas: A Battlefield Guide presents readers with a clear, convenient guide to the sites in northern and central Virginia that shaped the course and outcome of these campaigns. Lucid, concise narratives give readers a better understanding of the events that took place on these battlefields and of the terrain, personalities, and decisions that shaped them.

In Jubal Early: Robert E. Lee’s Bad Old Man, a new critical biography of Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early, Civil War historian B.F. Cooling III takes a fresh look at one of the most fascinating, idiosyncratic characters in the pantheon of Confederate heroes and villains. Dubbed by Robert E. Lee as his "bad old man" because of his demeanor, Early was also Lee's chosen instrument to attack and capture Washington as well as defend the Shenandoah Valley granary in the summer and fall of 1864. Neither cornered nor snared by Union opponents, Early came closest of any Confederate general to capturing Washington, ending Lincoln's presidency, and forever changing the fate of the Civil War and American history. His failure to grapple with this moment of historical immortality and emerge victorious bespeaks as much his own foibles as the counter-efforts of the enemy, the effects of weather and the shortcomings of his army. From the pinnacle of success, Jubal Early descended to the trough of defeat within three months when opponent General Philip Sheridan resoundingly defeated him in the Valley campaign of 1864. Jubal Early famously exhibited a harder, less gallant personal as a leading Confederate practitioner of "hard" or destructive war, a tactic usually ascribed to Union generals Hunter, Sheridan, and Sherman. An extortionist of Yankee capital in northern towns in Pennsylvania and Maryland—typically in the form of tribute—Early also became forever associated with the wanton destruction of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, as well as Congressman Thaddeus Stevens private commerical ironworks, and the private dwellings of Maryland governor Augustus Bradford and then Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. How war hardened a crabbed, arthritically hobbled but brilliantly pragmatic soldier and lawyer offers one of the most fascinating puzzles of personality in Civil War history. One of the most alluring yet repellent figures of Southern Confederate history, Jubal Early would devolve from the ideal prewar constitutional unionist to the postwar personification of the unreconstructed rebel and progenitor of the “lost cause” explanation for the demise of the Confederacy's experiment in rebellion or independence. This critical study explains how one of Virginia's loyal sons came through war and peace to garner a unique position in the Confederacy's pantheon of heroes—and the Union’s cabal of military villains. Jubal Early: Robert E. Lee’s Bad Old Man will appeal to anyone interested in Civil War history and Confederate history.