title: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 (Military Campaigns of the Civil War)
author:  Gary W. Gallagher 
description: A strong collection. . . . Indispensable to anyone desiring to study the campaign.--<i>West Virginia History</i><br /><br /><br /><br />A valuable book that is essential reading for anyone interested in the Valley Campaign of 1864.--<i>Military Images</i><br /><br /><br /><br />This new volume in the series contains fine writing and commendable research. It has much to offer in any examination of the significant campaign.--<i>Civil War News</i><br /><br /><br /><br />For Civil War buffs (and you know who you are), it is the closest thing to attending a round-table in book form--read a chapter en masse and let the debating begin.--<i>Civil War Times</i><br /><br /><br /><br />A great compilation of essays dealing with the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864. . . . Original and thoroughly researched. . . . Provide[s] historians and buffs alike with new material to consider when examining the Civil War.--<i>Historian</i><br /><br /><br /><br />Provides perspective on a variety of military, political and social issues related to the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864.--<i>The Washington Times</i><br /><br /><br /><br />In <i>The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864</i>, Gary Gallagher and his distinguished colleagues offer Civil War historians and lovers of Virginia history a fresh and perceptive analysis of the military, social, and political events during the final campaign in the 'Breadbasket of the South.'--<i>North Carolina Historical Review</i><br /><br /><br /><br />Gallagher's book, <i>The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864</i>, is a fine collection of essays, all well written and researched. . . . Gallagher's collection of essays represents sound scholarship on some of the notable personalities and tactical movements of a desperate Confederate operation in Virginia.--<i>Journal of American History</i><br /><br /><br /><br />Gallagher's latest volume in his distinguished Military Campaigns of the Civil War series is an intelligent, readable collection of essays that fills important gaps in our understanding of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864. The work fully meets the high standards of its predecessor volumes and will occupy an honored place next to them on my bookshelf.--Gordon C. Rhea, author of <i>Carrying the Flag: The Story of Private Charles Whilden, the Confederacy's Most Unlikely Hero</i><br /><br /><br /><br />For scholars . . . the volume offers significant new studies. More general Civil War readers will find the essays . . . informative, engaging, and well-written.--<i>Civil War History</i><br /><br /><br /><br />The delight found in these essays glimmers in the rummaging eye. . . . Gallagher's bazaar of scholars, mature and youthful, academic and independent, is open to a curious and treasure-hunting public.--<i>Military History of the West</i><br /><br /><br /><br />[<i>The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864</i>] will be a necessary work for any future study of the campaign for final control of 'The Breadbasket of the Confederacy.'--<i>Journal of Military History</i><br /><br />
zlib_text: The U.S. Army Campaigns of the Civil War
  Shenandoah 
  Valley Camp  ign
  the
    March – November 1864
  
  CMH Pub 75–14
  Cover: The Battle of Cedar Creek, by Julian A. Scott (Vermont State Curator)
  
  by
  Raymond K. Bluhm Jr.
  Center of Military History
  United States Army
  Washington, D.C., 2014
  Shenandoah 
  Valley Camp  ign
  the
    March – November 1864
  
  5
  Introduction 
  Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the 
  start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to 
  matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destruc-
  tive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the 
  Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The 
  war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over 
  six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year struggle. 
  Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American 
  Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown 
  in the earliest days of the republic’s founding,