Valley Thunder: The Battle of New Market and the Opening of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, May 1864 (Charles R. Knight - CWC)

Valley Thunder: The Battle of New Market and the Opening of the Shenandoah Campaign, May 1864  by Charles Knight Charles R. Knight’s 'Valley Thunder' is the first full-length account in more than three decades to examine the combat at New Market on May 15, 1864—the battle that opened the pivotal 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who set in motion the wide-ranging operation to subjugate the South in 1864, intended to attack the Confederacy on multiple fronts so it could no longer “take advantage of interior lines.” One of the keys to success in the Eastern Theater was control of the Shenandoah Valley, a strategically important and agriculturally abundant region that helped feed Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Grant tasked Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel, a German immigrant with a mixed fighting record, and a motley collection of units numbering some 10,000 men to clear the Valley and threaten Lee’s left flank. Opposing Sigel was John C. Breckinridge, a for