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Lee's Endangered Left: The Civil War in Western Virginia, Spring of 1,164. By Richard R. Duncan. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8071-2291-2. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 346. $29.95.
In the course of the recent flood of scholarship on the U.S. Civil War, historical studies seemed to have covered all imaginable aspects of the conflict. Yet relatively little attention has been given to the Great Valley of Virginia after the departure of General Jackson in 1862. This volume by Richard Duncan, professor of history at Georgetown University, seeks to fill this gap for the first half of 1864. It embraces both the strategy of Grant, and that of General Lee, and it details the military action in the area, down to the scores of specific encounters between the opposing forces.
The initiative at first lay with the North. Grant had several inter-related objectives: to move from Winchester, Virginia, through the Great Valley to deprive Confederate forces of its...