Rating: 
Summary: Very Good
Review: This is the first book I've read by Sears, and I must say that it is quite good. I plan on reading his Antietam treatment as well now that he has passed my test.The story is told in a very easy to follow narrative. There is some strategic/tactical analysis, but is mostly a tale of what happened where and when from a high level and some very nice quotes from the lowly private to round out the presentation. I hold Coddington's Gburg study as the daddy of all campaign studies and use it to gauge other books. Sears does a great job, but not quite a 5* one. He misses a little bit of the depth and his commentary is skewed in some places, although not as bad as some have commented. The movements are mostly covered from a corps level, frequent divisional details, occasional brigade, and very little regimental. I suppose that is a good mix for a casual reader. Someone looking for some extra details might be a little disappointed. The maps are often and excellent. Again though, most do not show much unit detail, there are a couple of exceptions (i.e. Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill Southern Brigade positions) Thre are a couple of other books on the subject, and someday I hope to get to them so that I may compare. Until then, I'm fairly confident in saying that Sears has done very good work and most will walk away satisified.
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