"By continuing to mine repositories for information—including diaries, letters, memoirs, military records, and pension applications—O'Neill has brought his unexcelled knowledge of the pertinent geography and personalities to these still under appreciated events."—Gordon Berg, Civil War Monitor
"Placing the battles in the strategic scenario and highlighting the leaders with their respective character flaws, makes this a masterful and engaging narrative well worth the attention of Civil War, cavalry, and military students and afficionados."—James Stacy, Journal of America's Military Past
"In addition to providing an exemplary historical account of a series of sharply contested cavalry actions fought during the early stages of the Gettysburg Campaign, Robert O'Neill's Small but Important Riots: The Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville is unquestionably indispensable to any meaningful discussion of the mid-war evolution of the Union mounted arm in the East."—Civil War Books and Authors
"This is a remarkable book. Author O’Neill first wrote on this subject, and with this title, thirty years ago. But over the course of the last thirty years, he has continued to investigate in ever increasing depth the events that took place in the Loudoun Valley prior to the Battle of Gettysburg. Digging ever deeper into archives, including multiple letters written by participants that are more available by digital means, his conclusions have undergone considerable change."—Keither Poulter, North & South
“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
"Robert F. O’Neill has written the definitive book on the cavalry battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville. Decades of painstaking research in the archives and walking the battlespace culminate into O’Neill’s concise and engaging storytelling. Skirmishes come to life as O’Neill unearths new information and provides answers to questions that have remained a mystery for over 160 years. Small but Important Riots is indispensable reading to understanding the cavalry and the strategic context these engagements had on the Gettysburg campaign."—Patrick K. O'Donnell, historian and bestselling author of The Indispensables and the forthcoming book The Unvanquished
