Customer Reviews

Confederate Retaliation: McCausland's 1864 Raid

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Only a small fraction of this book deals with the actual "burning of Chambersburg". A more apt title might be "McCausland's 1864 Raid[s]", or better still "McCausland and Johnson's Raids of 1864". While maps are helpful and somewhat well detailed, they're not to scale, so the distance traveled by units to engage each other is often lost. While we know what roads are available today to get to these sites, and know that they are over most of the same roadbeds as then, an overall period map that might have been viewed by the parties envolved would have been very enlightening. Still, there's not that much material out there on this topic relative to other campaigns, and this book contains a lot of information/excitement of Confederate Cavalry raids in hostile territory in a very readable format.

My last name was McCausland before I married so naturally I was interested in reading this book. I loved it. I was a U.S. history major in college years ago and never heard about this raid. The book came in excellent condition and I pounced on it right away. I am going to pass it on to my brother for his birthday and I know he will love it also.

I found this work sadly lacking in the one aspect that would have made this a darn good read. Background and biographical information on the antagonists of either side is woefully short. We get next to nothing in the way of background info on McCausland and his subordinates, as well as Confederate Gen. Jubal Early or the Union army ersonnel involved. Neither is information on the units involved in this campaign provided. The work is presented, in my opinion, in a way that assumes the reader is knowledgable of the war and soldiers involved. While the movements of the various units before, during, and after the raid are covered quite well, it is written in the mode of a regimental history, dry and without adding much in the way of things that would be interesting to the casual student of the war and campaign. The book reads like an hour by hour trip from Cleveland, Oh. to Philadephia, Pa., and is about as interesting.