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    To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign
    To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign
    To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign
    Audiobook17 hours

    To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign

    Written by Stephen W. Sears

    Narrated by Nelson Runger

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    About this audiobook

    It was the largest campaign ever attempted in the Civil War: the Peninsula campaign of 1862. General George McClellan planned to advance from Yorktown up the Virginia Peninsula and destroy the Rebel army in its own capital. But with Robert E. Lee delivering blows to the Union army, McClellan's plan fell through at the gates of Richmond. Now, in a study of the great Civil War engagement that weaves together narrative, military analysis, and eyewitness accounts drawn from the diaries and letters of soldiers, historian Stephen W. Sears showcases all the reasons why Ken Burns, the producer of the PBS series The Civil War, calls Sears "one of our best Civil War historians."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 17, 2013
    ISBN9781470325473
    Author

    Stephen W. Sears

    STEPHEN W. SEARS is the author of many award-winning books on the Civil War, including Gettysburg and Landscape Turned Red. A former editor at American Heritage, he lives in Connecticut.,

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    4/5

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    • 3/5
      The book is largely military history and, like much Civil War history, tends to overemphasize generals. There are subtle undertones of glorification of Confederate officers. It is worth a listen if you wish to simply hear descriptions of named brigades and about the reputations of a variety of officers.
    • 4/5
      Robert E. Lee's overly ambitious tactics, poorly drafted orders, and the Army of Northern Virginia's sloppy execution of his battle plans, are highlighted in Stephen W. Sears's history of the Peninsula Campaign in "To the Gates of Richmond." The problems which plagued Lee's army are compared with the arrogant bombasts and cowering timidity of "the young Napoleon," Gen. George B. McClellan. The author recounts McClellan's masterful strategy of making an amphibious landing on the lower Virginia peninsula, slowly and seemingly inexoribly advancing up that peninsula until his army was close enough to Richmond to hear the church bells and shows how Lee's ambitious and aggressive attacks caused McClellan to lose all nerve and to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Relying on personal accounts of both common soldiers and ranking officers, Sears illustrates the hapless incompetence of both armies in this early campaign, the largest in terms of numbers of troops that would occur during the Civil War. History tells us that the Army of Northern Virginia and its legendary campaign would learn from their mistakes and improve, while McClellan would not and would be cast aside by Lincoln and history. Sears is a gifted author and this is an excellent and balanced account of an important seminal campaign of the American Civil War.