Booknotes: The Union Cavalry and the Chickamauga Campaign

New Arrival:
• The Union Cavalry and the Chickamauga Campaign by Dennis W. Belcher
  (McFarland, 2018).

With now four related studies under his belt, Dennis Belcher is rapidly becoming one of the leading authorities on the mounted forces (in particular the Union cavalry) that operated in the Confederate heartland during the Civil War. Though I didn't have the chance to read his biography of David Stanley, the general often credited with being the true "father" of the Army of the Cumberland's mounted arm, his The Cavalry of the Army of the Cumberland (2016) and The Cavalries at Stones River: An Analytical History (2017) are both excellent. I consider the Stones River study his best work to date, and his new book The Union Cavalry and the Chickamauga Campaign adopts a similar presentation (though with a one-sided focus this time).

From the description: "During the Chickamauga Campaign, General Stanley's two Union cavalry divisions battled Forrest's and Wheeler's cavalry corps in some of the most difficult terrain for mounted operations. The Federal troopers, commanded by Crook and McCook, guarded the flanks of the advance on Chattanooga, secured the crossing of the Tennessee River, then pushed into enemy territory. The battle exploded on September 18 as Col. Minty and Col. Wilder held off a determined attack by Confederate infantry. The fighting along Chickamauga Creek included notable actions at Glass Mill and Cooper's Gap. Union cavalry dogged Wheeler's forces throughout Tennessee. The Union troopers fought under conditions so dusty they could hardly see, leading the infantry through the second costliest battle of the war."

The book looks like a worthy companion to David Powell's groundbreaking study of the Confederate cavalry during the Chickamauga Campaign. The preface (which you can read through the title link above) offers a good summary of the contents of the book. Interestingly, Belcher intentionally abbreviates his own coverage of the key September 18 fighting to a single chapter in anticipation of Eric Wittenberg's book-length study Holding the Line on the River of Death: Union Mounted Forces at Chickamauga, September 18, 1863 (Fall, 2018). Generally speaking, I don't think it advisable that historians pay that kind of deference, given that multiple accounts of the same actions written by good authors are always useful for comparison, but what's done is done. Wittenberg also contributes the foreword to this book.

In addition to detailed operational and tactical narratives, Belcher's book includes a multitude of photographs along with numerous organizational charts and tables. It also brings back the lost art of full-page(!) maps, all attractive original creations from cartographer George Skoch. Everything looks good.