“The product of nearly thirty years of effort and accumulated knowledge, Robert O’Neill’s book challenges what we have known about an essential part of the Gettysburg campaign. This is military history with humanity—events seen through the eyes of the people who in June 1863 turned the country roads connecting Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville, Virginia, into a sprawling landscape of battle. . . . Deep research, new insights, clear writing, and unexcelled knowledge of the ground and personalities make this book essential reading for anyone interested in the momentous months of June and July 1863.”—John Hennessy, chief historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
“No one knows more about these three fierce cavalry engagements of the Gettysburg campaign or the documentary details of Union cavalry service in the East than Robert O’Neill. This revision of his 1993 study is based on even more details teased out of archival sources and a walking familiarity with the battlegrounds. It’s an essential text if you want to understand cavalry service in the Civil War.”—Andrew W. German, historian and author of a forthcoming book on the First Pennsylvania Cavalry
“Robert O’Neill has produced a magnificent book. Over decades of studying these three cavalry battles, he had built an unmatched reputation for diligence as a researcher, but he has remained above all a storyteller. O’Neill’s narrative runs swiftly through the five-day fight, and his battle writing is superb. Not just one of the best books ever written about Civil War cavalry, this is a model of historical scholarship and of narrative history.”—William J. Miller, author of Decision at Tom’s Brook: George Custer, Thomas Rosser, and the Joy of the Fight