โThose who enjoy Bruce Cattonโs and Shelby Footeโs Civil War histories will find a fictional equal in Petersโ retelling of the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.โ โKirkus Reviews (starred review)
Winner of the 2015 Boyd Award for Literary Excellence in Military Fiction
From a daring Confederate raid that nearly seized Washington, D.C., to a stunning reversal on the bloody fields of Cedar Creek, the summer and autumn of 1864 witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of our Civil Warโin mighty battles now all but forgotten.
The desperate struggle for mastery of Virginiaโs Shenandoah Valley, breadbasket of the Confederacy and the Southโs key invasion route into the North, pitted a remarkable cast of heroes in blue and gray against each other: runty, rough-hewn Phillip Sheridan, a Union general with an uncanny gift for inspiring soldiers, and Jubal Early, his Confederate counterpart, stubborn, raw-mouthed and deadly; the dashing Yankee boy-general, George Armstrong Custer, and the brilliant, courageous John Brown Gordon, a charismatic Georgian who lived one of the eraโs greatest love stories.
From hungry, hard-bitten Rebel privates to a pair of Union officers destined to become presidents, from a neglected hero who saved our nationโs capital and went on to write one of his centuryโs greatest novels, to doomed Confederate leaders of incomparable valor, Ralph Peters brings to life yesteryearโs giants and their breathtaking battles with the same authenticity, skill and insight he offered readers in his prize-winning Civil War bestsellers, Cain at Gettysburg and Hell or Richmond.