Booknotes: The Boy Generals V3

New Arrival:

• The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, from the Shenandoah Valley to the Surrender at Appomattox by Adolfo Ovies (Savas Beatie, 2026).

This book marks the conclusion of a trilogy (Volume 1 and Volume 2) that began in 2021. In it, the "turbulent events of the closing months of the Civil War serve as a backdrop for the increasingly dysfunctional—and bitter—relationship between George Armstrong Custer and Wesley Merritt."

As one might have gathered from the subtitles of all three installments, description and analysis of the fraught relationship that developed between Custer and Merritt is the central theme of the series. According to author Adolfo Ovies, not only did their personalities clash but they differed in how they believed cavalry was best used on the battlefield. From the description: Ovies "scrutinizes their methods of discipline, their exercise of authority, and their “spirited rivalry.” It was an association that progressed from distaste to acrimony and finally to outright insubordination on Custer’s part. The boy cavalier was a firm believer in the shock value of the mounted charge. Merritt maintained that the horse was but a means of transporting the trooper to the battlefield, where he would fight on foot with his carbine."

Their differences came to the fore during "the bloody battles that ensued after Philip H. Sheridan’s ascension to command Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864," and this third volume examines in depth the Valley battles of Third Winchester, Tom’s Brook, Cedar Creek, and Waynesboro before closing with coverage of the Appomattox Campaign.

The volume also addresses the hard war aspects of the fighting in the Shenandoah Valley during this period. More from the description: The Boy Generals "is an uncompromising examination of the darker aspects of the way the war in the Valley unfolded. General Ulysses S. Grant’s orders to Sheridan to “eat out Virginia clear and clean” fell on the shoulders of these two “boy generals.” The brutality of the irregular warfare that lurked in the rear of the Army of the Shenandoah is addressed in a blow-by-blow accounting of depredations and retaliations."

This final volume in the trilogy "captures Merritt and Custer as they ride the crest of a wave of glory in one of the most dysfunctional yet influential relationships in the Army of the Potomac." The series as a whole argues that "(i)t is impossible to fully understand cavalry operations in the Eastern Theater without understanding the dynamic between these two commanders."