Award-winning Authors Take Fresh Look at Shenandoah Valley Battle that Opened the Door to Gettysburg

2026-08-24 08:01:49 Art & Entertainment

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EL DORADO HILLS, CA: June 3, 2016 ? Savas Beatie recently announced the release of new book by award-winning authors Eric J. Wittenberg and Scott L. Mingus, The Second Battle of Winchester: The Confederate Victory That Opened the Door to Gettysburg, June 13-15, 1863. Now, finally, the pivotal battle that paved the way to Gettysburg has the book it has long deserved.

Today, the Second Battle of Winchester is largely forgotten. But in June 1863, the politically charged front-page news caught the President and the War Department by surprise and forever tarnished Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy?s career. The Federal soldiers who fought there spent a lifetime seeking redemption, arguing their three-day ?forlorn hope? delayed the Rebels long enough to allow the Army of the Potomac to arrive and defeat Lee at Gettysburg. For the Confederates, the decisive leadership on display outside Winchester proved an illusion that masked significant command issues buried within the upper echelons of Stonewall Jackson?s former corps, which would only make themselves known in the earliest days of July on a different battlefield.

?The authors have mined a stunning array of freshly unearthed primary sources to produce the definitive account of the often overlooked but vitally important battle of Second Winchester. The superb writing and sharp insights make it essential reading for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the long and complicated campaign that culminated at Gettysburg,? said Rob Wynstra, author of multiple-award-winning title The Rashness of That Hour: Politics, Gettysburg, and the Downfall of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson.

?There has long been a gap in the historiography of the Gettysburg Campaign,? said author Eric Wittenberg, ?in that the important engagements at Winchester and Martinsburg during the opening phases of the campaign have never had a detailed tactical treatment before that puts these actions in their proper historical context. We hope that we have finally corrected that oversight.?

?For some time, Eric and I both lamented that Second Winchester was underrepresented,? co-author Scott Mingus notes. ?So much primary source material had not been used in previous studies of that battle, including extensive files on the 87th Pennsylvania in my local historical society. We decided to combine our mutual interest in Second Winchester to write what we wanted to be the definitive history of the fighting.?

About the Authors: Eric J. Wittenberg is an accomplished Civil War cavalry historian and author who has written numerous articles and more than fifteen books, including Gettysburg?s Forgotten Cavalry Actions, which won the prestigious Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award and the Army Historical Foundation?s Distinguished Writing Award, for Reprint (second edition). Scott L. Mingus Sr. has written several articles for Gettysburg Magazine and is the author of seventeen Civil War titles, including Confederate General William ?Extra Billy? Smith: From Virginia?s Statehouse to Gettysburg Scapegoat, which won the Nathan Bedford Forrest Southern History Award and the Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr. Literary Prize.

About Savas Beatie LLC: Savas Beatie LLC is a leading military and general history publishing company. Read more about The Second Battle of Winchester, including excerpts from the book and interviews with the authors: http://tinyurl.com/zlcl2cn.

Contact: Michele Sams, Savas Beatie LLC
Email: michele@savasbeatie.com
Phone: 916-941-6896, Fax: 916-941-6895