The Shenandoah in Flames: The Valley Campaign of 1864

The Civil War #24

by Thomas A. Lewis

Covers the battles for the Shenandoah Valley in 1864, from the Battle of New Market in May through the Battle of Cedar Creek in October. Illustrated with maps and period photographs, paintings, engravings, and sketches.

Genres: Civil War, History, American Civil War, Military History, Civil War Eastern Theater, Nonfiction

176 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1987

About the author

Thomas A. Lewis is a veteran journalist (National Wildlife, Smithsonian magazines) and broadcaster (Voice of America) who has written six non-fiction books, two of which received favorable critical attention nationwide. He became alarmed about the state of the environment while working as the executive editor of the Time-Life Books 16-volume series on the earth sciences, “Planet Earth,” and later when, as roving editor for National Wildlife Magazine, he traveled from Alaska to Costa Rica to chronicle the distress of animals and their ecosystems.

It was while writing “EQ Index,” an annual assessment of the state of the US environment for National Wildlife and The World Almanac, that he began to suspect that pollution and exploitation of natural resources had reached a point of no return. That conviction led to his latest non-fiction work, Brace for Impact: Surviving the Crash of the Industrial Age -- and to the present work of fiction, which imagines how that crash might happen, and how an American family might deal with it.

He lives on a “sustainable-ready” farm in West Virginia where he has learned, he says, that “if my life depended on sustainable living I’d be dead now.”

Reviews

[Dee Renee Chesnut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Destructive campaigns for both sides, bushwackers, and civilians

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are about 300 million Civil War books out there. I remember this one being a competent overview of this phase of the war; one I read preparing for an article I wrote.

[Mark Luongo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Participated in the 150th Anniversary Re-enactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek, Middletown, Virginia October 17-19, 2014. A very good read in a series of excellent reads.

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too bad as an overview of operations in the Shenandoah Valley from May 1864 to March 1865. It simply doesn't go into a lot of detail about individual battles.

[Monte Lamb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book on this campaign that has excellent pictures and maps, the book tells the story without much conjecture, but very informative. It is very good for the casual reader of the Civil War with its direct manner. It does cover the story well.