Brigadier General John D. Imboden

Brigadier General John D. Imboden
Author: Spencer Tucker
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2010-09-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0813128773

" John D. Imboden is an important but often overlooked figure in Civil War history. With only limited militia training, the Virginia lawyer and politician rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Confederate Army and commanded the Shenandoah Valley District, which had been created for Stonewall Jackson. Imboden organized and led the Staunton Artillery in the capture of the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. He participated in the First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas and organized a cavalry command that fought alongside Stonewall Jackson in his Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The Jones/Imboden Raid into West Virginia cut the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and ravaged the Kanawha Valley petroleum fields. Imboden covered the Confederate withdrawal from Gettysburg and later led cavalry accompanying Jubal Early in his operations against Philip Sheridan in Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Imboden completed his war service in command of Confederate prisons in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Spencer C. Tucker fully examines the life of this Confederate cavalry commander, including analysis of Imboden’s own post-war writing, and explores overlooked facets of his life, such as his involvement in the Confederate prison system, his later efforts to restore the economic life of his home state of Virginia by developing its natural resources, and his founding of the city of Damascus, which he hoped to make into a new iron and steel center. Spencer C. Tucker, John Biggs Professor of Military History at the Virginia Military Institute, is the author of Vietnam and the author or editor of several other books on military and naval history. He lives in Lexington, Virginia.

Imboden's Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign

Imboden's Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign
Author: Steve French
Publisher:
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2008
Genre: Gettysburg Campaign, 1863
ISBN:

Details the participation of Imboden's brigade, the 18th Virginia Cavalry Regiment, in General Lee's Gettysburg campaign into Pennsylvania. Led by Brigadier General John D. Imboden and supported by General William E. Jones, Imboden's brigade began a career in guerrilla warfare participating in raids in Northwest Virginia. For the Gettysburg Campaign, he served under Major General J.E.B. Stuart as a rear guard into the Shenandoah Valley following General Robert E. Lee. He led raids against the countryside in Pennsylvania guarding ammunition and supply wagons in and around Chambersburg while Lee lost at Gettysburg. Imboden and his brigade were in charge of escorting the wagons that carried the wounded back into Virginia. When trapped by the flooding Potomac at Williamsport, he set up a defensive force of wounded men firing muskets and an artillery battery to fend off a Union cavalry attack led by General Buford and Kilpatrick.

The Jones-Imboden Raid

The Jones-Imboden Raid
Author: Darrell L. Collins
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2007-08-14
Genre: History
ISBN:

"The western counties of Virginia (later WV) housed the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which connected Washington with the Midwest's vast wealth of manpower and supplies. This work covers the Confederacy's 1863 attempt to invade WV and destroy the B&O line. Rich with oral history, gives a detailed, personal account of the unsuccessful Jones-Imboden Raid"--Provided by publisher.

The Civil War Begins

The Civil War Begins
Author:
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 64
Release:
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780160915475

Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destructive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year struggle. Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown in the earliest days of the republic’s founding, primarily over the existence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way to paper over the division of the country into two camps: one that was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit its spread and then to abolish it. Our nation was indeed “half slave and half free,” and that could not stand. Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passions and emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring states’ rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic of being convinced that they were “worth” three of the soldiers on the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the profession of arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to seem like cowards. Whatever the reasons, the struggle was long and costly and only culminated with the conquest of the rebellious Confederacy, the preservation of the Union, and the end of slavery. These campaign pamphlets on the American Civil War, prepared in commemoration of our national sacrifices, seek to remember that war and honor those in the United States Army who died to preserve the Union and free the slaves as well as to tell the story of those American soldiers who fought for the Confederacy despite the inherently flawed nature of their cause. The Civil War was our greatest struggle and continues to deserve our deep study and contemplation.

Retreat from Gettysburg

Retreat from Gettysburg
Author: Kent Masterson Brown, Esq.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2011-08-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807869422

In a groundbreaking, comprehensive history of the Army of Northern Virginia's retreat from Gettysburg in July 1863, Kent Masterson Brown draws on previously untapped sources to chronicle the massive effort of General Robert E. Lee and his command as they sought to move people, equipment, and scavenged supplies through hostile territory and plan the army's next moves. Brown reveals that even though the battle of Gettysburg was a defeat for the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee's successful retreat maintained the balance of power in the eastern theater and left his army with enough forage, stores, and fresh meat to ensure its continued existence as an effective force.

Valley Thunder

Valley Thunder
Author: Charles R. Knight
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2010-05-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1611210542

An “exciting and informative” account of the Civil War battle that opened the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, with illustrations included (Lone Star Book Review). Charles Knight’s Valley Thunder is the first full-length account in decades to examine the combat at New Market on May 15, 1864 that opened the pivotal 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 on multiple fronts so the Confederacy could no longer “take advantage of interior lines.” A key to success in the Eastern Theater was control of the Shenandoah Valley, an 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 Maj. Gen. (and former US Vice President) John C. Breckinridge, who assembled a scratch command to repulse the Federals. Included in his 4,500-man army were Virginia Military Institute cadets under the direction of Lt. Col. Scott Ship, who’d marched eighty miles in four days to fight Sigel. When the armies faced off at New Market, Breckinridge told the cadets, “Gentlemen, I trust I will not need your services today; but if I do, I know you will do your duty.” The sharp fighting seesawed back and forth during a drenching rainstorm, and wasn’t concluded until the cadets were inserted into the battle line to repulse a Federal attack and launch one of their own. The Union forces were driven from the Valley, but would return, reinforced and under new leadership, within a month. Before being repulsed, they would march over the field at New Market and capture Staunton, burn VMI in Lexington (partly in retaliation for the cadets’ participation at New Market), and very nearly capture Lynchburg. Operations in the Valley on a much larger scale that summer would permanently sweep the Confederates from the “Bread Basket of the Confederacy.” Valley Thunder is based on years of primary research and a firsthand appreciation of the battlefield terrain. Knight’s objective approach includes a detailed examination of the complex prelude leading up to the battle, and his entertaining prose introduces soldiers, civilians, and politicians who found themselves swept up in one of the war’s most gripping engagements.

Spearhead of Logistics

Spearhead of Logistics
Author: Benjamin King
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 584
Release: 2016-02-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780160931192

Spearhead of Logistics is a narrative branch history of the U.S. Army's Transportation Corps, first published in 1994 for transportation personnel and reprinted in 2001 for the larger Army community. The Quartermaster Department coordinated transportation support for the Army until World War I revealed the need for a dedicated corps of specialists. The newly established Transportation Corps, however, lasted for only a few years. Its significant utility for coordinating military transportation became again transparent during World War II, and it was resurrected in mid-1942 to meet the unparalleled logistical demands of fighting in distant theaters. Finally becoming a permanent branch in 1950, the Transportation Corps continued to demonstrate its capability of rapidly supporting U.S. Army operations in global theaters over the next fifty years. With useful lessons of high-quality support that validate the necessity of adequate transportation in a viable national defense posture, it is an important resource for those now involved in military transportation and movement for ongoing expeditionary operations. This text should be useful to both officers and noncommissioned officers who can take examples from the past and apply the successful principles to future operations, thus ensuring a continuing legacy of Transportation excellence within Army operations. Additionally, military science students and military historians may be interested in this volume.

Imboden's Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign

Imboden's Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign
Author: Steve French
Publisher: Savas Publishing
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2013-09-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1940669022

John Daniel Imboden carved out one of the most unique and fascinating careers of the Civil War. In 1859, the lawyer and politician was commissioned a captain in the Staunton (Va.) Artillery. When war broke out in 1861, he served with his battery at Harpers Ferry and First Manassas. In 1862, Imboden raised the 1st Virginia Partisan Rangers and fought in Stonewall Jackson's famed Shenandoah Valley Campaign. A promotion to brigadier general followed in early 1863, as did daring cavalry raids. Imboden served until the end of the war, but it was his service during the Gettysburg Campaign for which he is best remembered. Steve French's Imboden's Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign, the winner of the 2008 Bachelder-Coddington Award, the Gettysburg Civil War Round Table Book Award, and the Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal, is the first full-length book to tell the story of the general's "finest hour." The brigadier and his 1400-man Northwestern Virginia brigade, which included artillery, infantry and cavalry, spent most of the early days of the campaign raiding along the B&O Railroad in western Virginia, before guarding ammunition and supply trains in the rear of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during the three-day (July 1-3, 1863) Battle of Gettysburg. The sharp Confederate defeat forced a hasty retreat , and Lee put Imboden in charge of escorting the wagons filled with thousands of wounded safely back to Virginia. After a harrowing journey beset by heavy rain and attacks by roving bands of Union cavalry, Imboden's seventeen-mile-long "wagon train of misery" finally reached Williamsport, Maryland, where the flooding Potomac River trapped them. On July 5-6, Imboden established a strong defensive position on a ridge outside of town and cobbled together a force of soldiers that included his own brigade, various Confederate units on their way to join the army, 600 teamsters, many walking wounded and over twenty cannons. Demonstrating sound judgment and outstanding bravery, this hastily organized force beat back attacks by two Union cavalry divisions in the "Wagoners Fight." Imboden's efforts saved the wagon train and thousands of men who would otherwise have been captured or killed. General Lee praised Imboden and reported that he "gallantly repulsed" the enemy troopers. French's Imboden's Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign is based on scores of archival sources, newspaper accounts, and an excellent understanding of the terrain. The dozens of maps, photos, and illustrations, coupled with French's smooth prose, tells in riveting detail the full story of the often forgotten but absolutely critical role Imboden and his men played during the final fateful days of the Gettysburg Campaign.