Book Review: Shenandoah, 1862

In 2009, I went on a road trip to visit various Civil War battlefields. My route down to Tennessee (Shiloh and Chickamauga!) took me through the Shenandoah Valley. Driving down I-81, I passed easily dozens of Civil War Trails signs, and I even ended up stopping in Lexington, Winchester and New Market. And in that trip, I quickly realized...I didn't understand how the war unfolded in the Shenandoah AT ALL. It was a bewildering mystery of the Union advancing, the Confederates defeating and driving them back, possession of important points changing hands repeatedly, and all of the events of multiple campaigns were layered one on top of the other. I picked up a pamphlet that promised to clear up some of the mystery, but never got around to reading it, and have remained bemused ever since. More than that, I think I've actively turned a blind eye towards the Shenandoah campaigns, despite their importance, because that was easier than muddling through and trying to sort it all out. Yet I did want the veil lifted from my eyes, so when I spotted Shenandoah, 1862 by Peter Cozzens, I knew the time had come: this book would remove the fog of war and I'd have some better idea of what on earth had happened there in 1862. Cozzens' fine book didn't disappoint.

Book Review
Cozzens, Peter. Shenandoah, 1862: Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign. The University of North Carolina Press. 2008. 623p. Photographs, bibliography, maps, index. ISBN: 9780807832004.

In most works about the Shenandoah campaign of 1862, author's present a narrative of the brilliance of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and omit a detailed description of the point of view and activities of his Union adversaries. Peter Cozzens (independent scholar) seeks to overcome this deficiency by vividly and extensively describing both sides of the conflict in the Valley. Using exhaustive research, Cozzens helps the campaign to come alive in all of its elements - the marches and counter-marches, battles, maneuvers, and politics. The events in the Valley are set in context against the greater panoply of events at the time, especially the political atmosphere in Washington DC and the relationship between events in the Shenandoah and the advance of Union General George B. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign. The description of events on the Union side is particularly interesting and offers a point of view rarely encountered in other works on the topic. Union Generals Nathaniel P. Banks, John C. Fremont and James Shields are transformed from straw men set up simply for Jackson to knock down, and are fully described as actors in the drama that unfolds - given credit for their successes, acknowledged for the challenges they faced, and roundly condemned for their very real failings. The only negative of this fine book is just how dense and scholarly it is: it is so rich in details and replete with primary sources fleshing out the narrative that at times it is difficult to read.

For those who'd like a better understanding of the Shenandoah Campaign in 1862, with a fair and balanced description of both the Confederate and Union sides, one could not do better than Cozzens' work on the topic.

Rating: 4 out of 5.