Rebels at the Gate is the dramatic story of the first Union victories of the Civil War and the events that caused Virginians to divide their state. In a defiant act to sustain President Lincoln's war effort, Virginia Unionists created their own state government in 1861-destined to become the new state of West Virginia.

One of the most dramatic battles of the Civil War, Chancellorsville was Robert E. Lee's masterpiece. Outnumbered two to one, Lee violated a cardinal rule of military strategy by dividing his small army, sending Stonewall Jackson on his famous twelve-mile march around the Union flank. Charging out of the Wilderness with Rebel yells, Jackson's troops destroyed one entire corps of the Union army, and Lee drove the rest across the Rappahannock River. Lee's...

On 4 April 1862, Major General George McClellan marched his 121,500-strong Army of the Potomac from Fort Monroe toward Richmond. Blocking his path were Major General John B. Magruder's Warwick-Yorktown Line fortifications and the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia. Despite outnumbering Magruder almost four to one, McClellan was tricked by Magruder's bluff of strength and halted his advance. Yorktown, the scene of Washington's 1781 victory over Cornwallis,...

By May 1864, General Robert E. Lee had been transformed from a young soldier into a gray-haired patriarch of the Confederate cause. As Lee struggled to keep his ragged soldiers alive, he faced pressure from two fronts. Grant's Union Army not only had superior numbers, but a steadfast infra-structure or railroads and industrialized supply routes. Lee's Last Campaign is a triumph of historic research and elegant writing. In this essential analysis of...

This is the first full-length account to examine the combat at New Market on May 15, 1864, which was pivotal in the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign. "Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who set in motion the wide-ranging operation to subjugate the South in 1864, intended to attack the Confederacy on multiple fronts so it could no longer 'take advantage of interior lines.' One of the keys to success in the Eastern Theater was control of the Shenandoah Valley,...