To the Gates of Richmond

The Peninsula campaign of 1862 was the largest campaign of the Civil War. More men were assembled on the Virginia Peninsula for this battle for the capital of the Confederacy than for any other operation of the war. Now Stephen Sears, the award-winning author of Landscape Turned Red, provides the first complete, full-length account of the campaign ever written, a masterly narrative by one of our foremost historians. The Peninsula campaign was General George McClellan's. Grand scheme to advance from Yorktown up the Virginia Peninsula and destroy the Rebel army in its own capital. Though initially successful, McClellan's plans fell through at the gates of Richmond. Assuming command of the Confederate forces, Robert E. Lee split his army and proceeded to deliver a series of hammer blows against the Federals. Though the Confederates were not invariably victorious on the field, Lee's will to fight so surpassed McClellan's that in the end the. Union forces were expelled from the Peninsula. Weaving together narrative, military analysis, and firsthand testimony from the diaries and letters of Union and Confederate soldiers, Stephen Sears has crafted a magisterial history. It is at once a ground-breaking study of the great Civil War engagement, an unforgettable picture of men at war, and a sobering reflection of the role of individuals on the outcome of events.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.