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The Guns of Cedar Creek
A dramatic account of the Battle of Cedar Creek, a key engagement that was to decide who would control the strategically important Shenandoah Valley in the closing months of the Civil War
432 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1990
About the author
Thomas A. Lewis
28 books2 followersThomas 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.”
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.”
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 29, 2026
Battles just don't get any more dramatic than the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia, fought on October 19, 1864. General Philip Sheridan showed that he was one of the outstanding leaders of the war, as he literally snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
The Confederate forces under General Jubal Early launched a surprise dawn attack, routing Union forces. Sheridan was away from his army but made a 14-mile dash back to his army to rally his retreating troops. The Union soldiers then counterattacked, crushing Early's forces and driving him to the south. It was a decisive victory and secured the Shenandoah Valley, the "breadbasket" for General Lee's army, for the Union. Moreover, as it happened three weeks before the presidential election of 1864, it boosted Lincoln's reelection chances.
I read this book, first published in 1990, in 2008.
The Confederate forces under General Jubal Early launched a surprise dawn attack, routing Union forces. Sheridan was away from his army but made a 14-mile dash back to his army to rally his retreating troops. The Union soldiers then counterattacked, crushing Early's forces and driving him to the south. It was a decisive victory and secured the Shenandoah Valley, the "breadbasket" for General Lee's army, for the Union. Moreover, as it happened three weeks before the presidential election of 1864, it boosted Lincoln's reelection chances.
I read this book, first published in 1990, in 2008.
December 4, 2024
When I read the author’s observation in this book’s preface that it is “character that is the real subject here,” I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at right away. I soon found out it was signaling his approach in telling the story of the decisive October 1864 Battle of Cedar Creek. He proceeds to do so by focusing on the stories of many of the key players who fought there. It makes for a unique and readable approach to a staid genre too often filled with laboriously dry and detailed battle reports, even if the focus on the “who” sometimes ends up overshadowing the “what.”
This focus becomes apparent right away, as each major player gets not just a mini-biography to help establish their backgrounds, but each gets a full chapter of their own. The first is on Confederate Gen. Jubal Early, the second on his Union counterpart, Gen. Phil Sheridan. These chapters fully establish their biographies, their battle histories, and the pressures they faced ahead of their clash at Cedar Creek.
From here, subsequent chapters consist of dual biographies of opposing officers who faced off at Cedar Creek - Custer vs. Rosser, Crook vs. Gordon, Lowell vs. Ramseur. Ultimately, the entire first half of the book is essentially biography. Each individual’s story is well-told, and their rivalries well-established, though by telling each individual’s life story from its beginning to the cusp of Cedar Creek and then starting all over again with the next biographical subject, the narrative continually backtracks in time just when it seems we’re getting to the main event. One could be forgiven for getting halfway through the book and not even knowing that it’s meant to be about the Battle of Cedar Creek.
Eventually we learn about the importance of the battle to come. Confederate control of the Shenandoah Valley gave them access to the fertile region’s crops as well as an invasion route to the North. Union control would cut off a much-needed source of food for Confederate forces, close their route to the North, and hem in Gen. Lee’s forces further to the east, giving him less room to maneuver as he faced off against Gen. Grant.
Once the key players’ stories are established, the second half of the book finally focuses on the battle itself, in an easy-to-follow account that focuses largely on the actions of the key players themselves and doesn’t get too bogged down in tactics and maneuvers and other minutiae. What initially looked to be a Confederate victory was not to be, as Lewis writes of Gen. Sheridan’s dramatic ride to the front from a meeting he was attending in Washington as the battle began, rallying his troops for a counterattack, winning the day and seizing control of the Shenandoah for good.
Much as Sherman’s capture of Atlanta and Sheridan’s victory at Winchester the previous month had, the Union victory at Cedar Creek boosted Northern morale and Lincoln’s re-election chances. “National enthusiasm for Sheridan and his miraculous victory was easily transmuted into renewed enthusiasm for the war, and for the president whose policies were at long last beginning to pay dividends,” Lewis writes. The result of the victory, and of Sheridan's scorched-earth campaign through the Shenandoah, was that “the breadbasket of the Confederacy was a scorched and empty ruin. The last Southern army capable of inflicting harm on the North, the last distraction to Grant's Army of the Potomac, was gone.”
There’s relatively little analysis of the generals’ performance or the importance of the battle’s outcome, as the book returns to its biographical focus and ends with a long “whatever-happened-to-everyone” epilogue, in which the main players are variously relieved, disappointed or deceased once the war comes to an end. From there, we follow each of the survivors through their postwar lives.
So this is decidedly not a traditional battle history. The biographical first half of the book may make you wonder whether you’re ever going to read anything about the battle itself; the lengthy biographical epilogue may make you forget that you just did. But the individuals’ stories are absorbing, and the writing is compelling. So in the end, after reading my share of Civil War battle books that do little more than describe in granular detail what happened where and when, I found this approach to this particular battle to be a welcome and refreshing take.
This focus becomes apparent right away, as each major player gets not just a mini-biography to help establish their backgrounds, but each gets a full chapter of their own. The first is on Confederate Gen. Jubal Early, the second on his Union counterpart, Gen. Phil Sheridan. These chapters fully establish their biographies, their battle histories, and the pressures they faced ahead of their clash at Cedar Creek.
From here, subsequent chapters consist of dual biographies of opposing officers who faced off at Cedar Creek - Custer vs. Rosser, Crook vs. Gordon, Lowell vs. Ramseur. Ultimately, the entire first half of the book is essentially biography. Each individual’s story is well-told, and their rivalries well-established, though by telling each individual’s life story from its beginning to the cusp of Cedar Creek and then starting all over again with the next biographical subject, the narrative continually backtracks in time just when it seems we’re getting to the main event. One could be forgiven for getting halfway through the book and not even knowing that it’s meant to be about the Battle of Cedar Creek.
Eventually we learn about the importance of the battle to come. Confederate control of the Shenandoah Valley gave them access to the fertile region’s crops as well as an invasion route to the North. Union control would cut off a much-needed source of food for Confederate forces, close their route to the North, and hem in Gen. Lee’s forces further to the east, giving him less room to maneuver as he faced off against Gen. Grant.
Once the key players’ stories are established, the second half of the book finally focuses on the battle itself, in an easy-to-follow account that focuses largely on the actions of the key players themselves and doesn’t get too bogged down in tactics and maneuvers and other minutiae. What initially looked to be a Confederate victory was not to be, as Lewis writes of Gen. Sheridan’s dramatic ride to the front from a meeting he was attending in Washington as the battle began, rallying his troops for a counterattack, winning the day and seizing control of the Shenandoah for good.
Much as Sherman’s capture of Atlanta and Sheridan’s victory at Winchester the previous month had, the Union victory at Cedar Creek boosted Northern morale and Lincoln’s re-election chances. “National enthusiasm for Sheridan and his miraculous victory was easily transmuted into renewed enthusiasm for the war, and for the president whose policies were at long last beginning to pay dividends,” Lewis writes. The result of the victory, and of Sheridan's scorched-earth campaign through the Shenandoah, was that “the breadbasket of the Confederacy was a scorched and empty ruin. The last Southern army capable of inflicting harm on the North, the last distraction to Grant's Army of the Potomac, was gone.”
There’s relatively little analysis of the generals’ performance or the importance of the battle’s outcome, as the book returns to its biographical focus and ends with a long “whatever-happened-to-everyone” epilogue, in which the main players are variously relieved, disappointed or deceased once the war comes to an end. From there, we follow each of the survivors through their postwar lives.
So this is decidedly not a traditional battle history. The biographical first half of the book may make you wonder whether you’re ever going to read anything about the battle itself; the lengthy biographical epilogue may make you forget that you just did. But the individuals’ stories are absorbing, and the writing is compelling. So in the end, after reading my share of Civil War battle books that do little more than describe in granular detail what happened where and when, I found this approach to this particular battle to be a welcome and refreshing take.
June 27, 2011
Cedar Creek was the deciding battle for the Shenandoah Valley. Cavalry masters from both sides were involved. The fates of the main participants are addressed. This is a good supplement to the Civil War library.
March 20, 2019
Well written summary of the leaders and battle at Cedar Creek in October 1864. Lewis provides an enlightening view of the two phase battle and the leadership needed to motivate the men to fight and overcome adversity. Nicely done.
January 18, 2026
I never expected to enjoy a book like this, but I really did! Being set on my home turf helped, yet it’s also an incredible, theatrical battle and story, packed with well-known figures from US history. I appreciated the author’s strength as a historian… especially the way he brings the human side of major players to life before the action unfolded. While I still glazed over a few of the denser battle descriptions, overall it was a compelling read, and I sure did learn a lot! 4/5 stars!
March 4, 2023
I have read about Sheridan's famous ride to save the day at Cedar Creek, but I didn't know too much about the other key leaders and the overall strategy and tactics. Well researched and written. With my second reading I am beginning to grasp the complexity of the battle.
June 12, 2020
I loved how the book is organized, drawing comparisons between leaders from both sides leading up to the battle. It helps put a human face on these historical figures and makes the reader care about their fates in the battle. It’s expertly and entertainingly written, and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the war.
February 10, 2023
The section of the book that actually covered Cedar Creek is very good; however, it forms only half of the book. Much of the first part of the book consisted of biographies of various commanders in each army but the choice of which commanders were covered seemed a bit random. For example, Crook's career was extensively covered, while Wright was far less covered and Emory barely at all; on the Confederate side, while Kershaw's division played as large of a role in the battle as Gordon's division, Kershaw's career was barely mentioned.
November 11, 2014
Participated in the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Cedar Creek, Middletown, VA October 17-19, 2014.
March 18, 2012
A Great Civil War narrative.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews