I've read all of Peter Cozzens' Civil War books. I started with Darkest Days of the War on Iuka and Corinth, moved on to his trilogy on the Kentucky / Tennessee / Georgia theater, and last read his biography of John Pope. All of them are good reads that should inspire any ACW buff. Cozzens includes the tactical minutae of each battle.

Cozzens' works have all focused on the western theater, although his Pope biography understandably spends a great deal of time on Second Bull Run. Shenandoah 1862 is Cozzens' first work focused entirely on an eastern campaign.

Now there have been a lot of works on Stonewall Jackson's valley campaign, so why would Cozzens bother writing on it? Everything I've read on the valley has focused on Jackson and the Confederate army, with authors acting as Stonewall admirers at best, cheerleaders at worst. Cozzens takes a much more balanced approach that will be familiar to anyone who has read his other works. He presents the Union side of the campaign with a thoroughness I've not seen in any other study, and the result is the best balanced account of the 1862 campaign I've ever read.

It's clear Cozzens admires Jackson's accomplishment, but he also faults some of Jacksons moves and traits as a commander. Cozzens avoids any lost cause hagiography of Jackson. Instead of reporting what contemporaries said about Jackson after the campaign, Cozzens focuses on Confederate letters, diaries, and journals written at the time. Even Stonewall Jackson, in the midst of his most famous campaign, had his detractors in the ranks. Jackson was never a good battlefield general, and Cozzens criticizes his tactical movements convincingly.

The most impressive thing about this book is the understanding Cozzens brings to Federal movements in the valley. Jackson won his campaign through deft movement and hard fighting, but he was helped by uncoordinated Union advances and decidedly second rate Union commanders. Fremont and Shields come in for some harsh criticism for their handling of Cross Keys and Port Republic, for example. But Cozzens seems to admire the leadership of Banks and McDowell, or at least to have a good appreciation for the limits under which they operated and some sympathy for their situations.

In sum then, Cozzens gives us the best account of the campaign to date. The book is a balanced look at the commanders, armies, movements, and battles in one of the most famous campaigns in American military history.

This is a well-written, highly-detailed look at the Shenandoah campaign of Stonewall Jackson.

But I couldn't finish it. The level of detail vastly exceeded my level of interest.

If you're really into the Civil War and/or Stonewall Jackson, I highly recommend this book -- five stars. If your interest is more casual, you might want to give it a try from the library first because it may be (much) more than what you're looking for.

Cozzens has written a fine historical account of this campaign. He writes in an interesting and informative style. It is no easy task to write an accurate and informative book that covers such a broad topic. My only criticism of this book is that he states "It is my purpose to write the first balanced, and I trust comprehensive history of the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign, giving equal voice to both Union and Confederate sources..." I am not certain that he fulfilled his goal at least in his description of the battle of Port Republic. Cozzens's account follows too closely that of Robert Krick's in Conquering the Valley. As Robert Krick writes from the southern perspective, it seems that Cozzens needed to dig deeper into the accounts of the Union officers and men who fought in and about the Coaling. In particular, he overlooked a number of both wartime and postwar accounts written by the officers and men of both the 66th Ohio and Battery H, 1st Ohio Light artillery. Those officers and men describe a different version of events that occurred in the fight for the Coaling. Two guns of Huntington's Battery tore through the forming ranks of the 66th as that Ohio regiment was forming to counterattack. As the 66th swept into the Coaling, they would recapture the 5 remaining guns. Also lost in Cozzens's account is the broken command structure of the Union Artillery. The feud between the artillery officers Daum and Huntington is not explored. Also Cozzens does not appear to describe all of the Union guns that were delivering raking fire into the Coaling. In short, the description of the battle is not "comprehensive." In fairness to Cozzens, his book is on the 1862 Campaign and perhaps one can not expect an overly detailed account of the Port Republic battle. It seems that a balanced, comprehensive account of this battle has yet to be written.

Peter Cozzens established his reputation as an author with a series of excellent western battle histories. Now he turns his attention to one of the classic campaigns in America's military history. "Stonewall" Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign is one of the best examples of what a smaller determined force can accomplish. The Robert G. Tanner and Gary W. Gallagher produced excellent campaign studies and Gary L. Ecelbarger is doing excellent work on individual battles. Tanner's book has long been considered the "standard work" by which all other books are judged. I am not ready to dethrone Tanner but I feel this is a real challenger for the title of best campaign study.
This is a detailed history, omitting nothing of importance and including most of the smaller details that make history interesting. This is not a dry, detailed account that plods on page after dreary page. Cozzens' lively style combines first person accounts with his considerable skill as a storyteller. The result is a history unfolding as it happened, imparting the urgency the participants felt to the reader. We know the story BUT we always understand how limited their knowledge was at the time. This ability makes bad decisions understandable and it shows the problem with doing nothing.
General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson is one of the pivotal figures of the early war. Lionized by many, he became a mythic heroic saintly leader. Cozzens gives us a very human Jackson. He is a complex person completely committed to the cause. He is a harsh taskmaster, prone to snap judgments and unforgiving. This portrait is neither unflattering nor idolizing. It seems to be completely honest, presenting the good and bad points that all men have.
N. P. Banks is a mixed bag, with some very good points as a person but a poor general. He is given a fair treatment that refused to make him a fool or a hero. Freemont is himself, vain, a poor general and a fool. The portrayal is what he was and nothing can change that. The treatment of Lincoln and Stanton is fair. While condemned for overreacting the author recognizes they lost sight of what was important and concentrated on a secondary front.
The handling of Garnett is excellent. The "reasons" Jackson found for the charges are well covered. This includes the personality problems and differences in what they saw as the role of second in command. The full story of the court martial and political maneuvers is not detailed within the book.
The writing is excellent. Battles are detailed, well covered and very understandable. The reader has no problems understanding why a position must be held or taken. The author's conclusions are well presented and quite good.
My only problem with this book is the maps. First, they were not completely proofed. Units in the battle are misidentified on the map. Second, maps need to be placed where they are needed. A map of the midpoint of a battle should not be placed at the start of the story. Likewise, one map cannot cover multiple unit positions with no indication of movement. I found this to be a constant problem when trying to follow the battle on the map. However, this is not a reason to bypass this excellent book.
I feel this will become a classic account of this campaign. The book is informative and fun to read.

Shenandoah 1862 is the latest in the series on Civil War America published by North Carolina Press. This outstanding series of book on the Civil War is edited by the eminent historian Gary Gallagher. This volume is by independent Civil War Scholar Peter Cozzens. Cozzens has penned major books on the conflict which have been well received by the Civil War community of scholars and buffs.
This 500 page opus is a detailed account of Jackson's immortal Valley Campaign from the Romney expedition in the winter of 1861 to the final battles in June 1862.
Cozzens:
1. Provides detailed strategic and tactical accounts of all the major battles of the Valley Campaign. These battles include Kernstown, McDowell,
Front Royal, Winchester and the final showdown at the twin battles of Cross Keys and Port Republic.
2. Jackson's victory in the Valley came at a time with Southern fortunes on the battlefield were at a nadir. Nashville had fallen in the West; Island Number 10 seized; Mobile occupied and huge inroads were being made by Federal forces in the Western theatre.
3. Jackson's campaign forced President Lincoln to shift McDowell and Shields armies to the Shenandoah instead of sending these troops to McClellan who was about to launch the Seven Days Campaign before the gates of Richmond. Jackson's victories enabled southern arms to fight on longer against the United States.
4, Cozzens is well balanced in his presentation looking at the plans and motivations behind Union movements into the Valley fray. Nevertheless, Jackson faced mediocre Union Commanders such as James Shields, Nathaniel Banks, John Charles Fremont who were unable to match Jackson's brilliance in battle.
5. Cozzens contends that Jackson was a great commander who did make mistakes. He was very secretive failing to share needed information with his subordinates. He had a vindictive streak feuding with the likes of General Richard Garnett who failed to perform to his high standards at Kernstown and General Loring during the ill fated Romney campaign. Cozzens asserts that Jackson would send his forces into combat in a piecemeal fashion rather than massing his forces for a major assault. These caveats are debatable.
6. Cozzens has done his homework. He has studied a vast array of first hand eyewitness accounts, memoirs and newspapers of the day to produce this first rate military history account of a major campaign in the Civil War
7. Maps are included but they could have been larger and easier to read. The book also has period illustrations and photos of the events described taken by the author.
8. Cozzens is one of our best Civil War historians as is shown by the blurbs of approval by such giants as Robert K. Krick and Kent Masterston Brown. This book is now an essential read for those interested in the Valley Campaign of 1862.