Stonewall Jackson's Romney Campaign: January 1

Comments:

Updated 7/06/04 This is a book in the Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders series.I just recently purchased this book focusing on the little known campaign which preceded Jackson's famous Valley Campaign. The book traces Jackson’s unsuccessful campaign to take back some of the northwestern Virginia counties wrested away by George McClellan late in 1861. This is a signed first edition of the book, being number 703 of 1000. It contains 192 pages, with the text going to page 154, the end notes going from page 155-168, the bibliography occupying pages 169-174, and the index taking up the balance. There are only two maps, but since no major fighting occurred, I at first thought that this wasn’t ruinous. However, with the way the book is written, many more maps with at least some detail are really needed for a person to make complete sense of the Campaign. I did not particularly like this book. I wanted to owing to the fact that I did not know much if anything about this campaign before reading the book, but the extreme lack of good maps (there were only two, and neither can even be described as adequate) combined with the extreme detail made this book very hard to follow. If you have read any of my other reviews, you probably know that I typically want as much detail as humanly possible, but this book did not seem to use information in any kind of enlightening way. Rankin’s text would have gone pretty well with numerous detailed maps showing troop positions on certain days, and the individual marches and skirmishes throughout the campaign. This book, like most other H.E. Howard offerings I have purchased, seems to be lacking in the proofreading department. Especially annoying was the tendency of the author (or the editor) to misspell the word vicinity as “vacinity”. The notes are sufficient, although I have definitely seen better bibliographies. Finally, a useful OOB of the various units on both sides wouldn’t have hurt, especially since Rankin repeatedly goes down to the regimental level when describing certain events. Since this is the only book I’m aware of which covers the Romney Campaign, I feel I must reluctantly recommend it. But if you have to make a choice, and that choice is between this and other, better books, I’d look elsewhere. For most books in the series, I would recommend getting them from C. Clayton Thompson. He offers great prices and usually has these available. 192 pp., 2 maps

For a full summary, click HERE.

Thomas M. Rankin	Stonewall Jackson's Romney Campaign: January 1 - February 20, 1862	Buy From C. Clayton Thompson Bookseller
Comments: Updated 7/06/04 This is a book in the Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders series.I just recently purchased this book focusing on the little known campaign which preceded Jackson's famous Valley Campaign. The book traces Jackson’s unsuccessful campaign to take back some of the northwestern Virginia counties wrested away by George McClellan late in 1861. This is a signed first edition of the book, being number 703 of 1000. It contains 192 pages, with the text going to page 154, the end notes going from page 155-168, the bibliography occupying pages 169-174, and the index taking up the balance. There are only two maps, but since no major fighting occurred, I at first thought that this wasn’t ruinous. However, with the way the book is written, many more maps with at least some detail are really needed for a person to make complete sense of the Campaign. I did not particularly like this book. I wanted to owing to the fact that I did not know much if anything about this campaign before reading the book, but the extreme lack of good maps (there were only two, and neither can even be described as adequate) combined with the extreme detail made this book very hard to follow. If you have read any of my other reviews, you probably know that I typically want as much detail as humanly possible, but this book did not seem to use information in any kind of enlightening way. Rankin’s text would have gone pretty well with numerous detailed maps showing troop positions on certain days, and the individual marches and skirmishes throughout the campaign. This book, like most other H.E. Howard offerings I have purchased, seems to be lacking in the proofreading department. Especially annoying was the tendency of the author (or the editor) to misspell the word vicinity as “vacinity”. The notes are sufficient, although I have definitely seen better bibliographies. Finally, a useful OOB of the various units on both sides wouldn’t have hurt, especially since Rankin repeatedly goes down to the regimental level when describing certain events. Since this is the only book I’m aware of which covers the Romney Campaign, I feel I must reluctantly recommend it. But if you have to make a choice, and that choice is between this and other, better books, I’d look elsewhere. For most books in the series, I would recommend getting them from C. Clayton Thompson. He offers great prices and usually has these available. 192 pp., 2 maps For a full summary, click HERE.