Book Description

Excerpt from History of the Campaign of Gen. T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson: In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia; From November 4, 1861, to June 17, 1862 The operations of General T. J. Jackson in the Valley of Virginia, during the first half of the year 1862, constitute one of the most brilliant and interesting episodes of the great Civil War. The theatre on which they took place afforded a quick and easy approach to the Federal capital and to the northern States. The mountains and rivers of the Valley gave to an active and skilful commander many opportunities of neutralizing great disparity of force. The celerity, energy, and skill which Jackson manifested on this field excited the admiration of his countrymen and produced a feeling nearly akin to consternation among his foes. His campaign had a most important bearing upon all the military operations in Virginia in the spring and summer of 1862, for he caused to be detained, for the defence of Washington and Maryland, forces in the aggregate four or five times as numerous as his own, and thus in a fatal degree hampered and paralyzed McClellan. The story of this campaign will always be interesting to the actors in it on both sides, and not merely to them; to the student of military art it affords an admirable example of an aggressive-defensive campaign, and one of the best instances in modern times of the degree to which skill and daring may neutralize superiority of numbers and resources. Our aim has been to give an accurate history of this campaign from official sources. Dr. Dabney's "Life of Jackson" was written during the war, and without access to the Federal sources of information. Much has been written since, but generally in the shape of personal narratives, or of statements based upon the newspaper correspondence of the time. Such accounts are of course imperfect, and some of them are so partisan in character as to be of no value. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.