John Sutter: A Life on the North American Frontier Book

After purchasing the board game Stonewall's Sword, I became interested in the battle of Cedar Mountain. Luckily for me, my local library has this book on its shelves and I was able to quickly dive into it rather than wait on it to ship to me from Amazon.

As the title suggests, this book focuses heavily on the Confederate side of the battle. The author has performed meticulous research and the book is heavily laden with anecdotes by eyewitnesses of the battle. The maps that are included in the book are of a workman quality, they will do the job, but I am glad that I had the board game map laid out while I was reading the book along with the map from the Civil War Trust so that I could better visualize what was happening. The author also included several pictures throughout the book to help the reader visualize the terrain and also period sketches and photographs of the battlefield. This is the must read book if you are interested in the Battle of Cedar Mountain.

I enjoyed the first part of this book, the chapters leading up to the battle. That part of the book flew by for me, but once the battle started, the narrative drug on. Mr. Krick used numerous primary sources from the private soldiers who fought this battle, and while using primary sources is a great idea and greatly appreciated by historians, Mr. Krick's use of them was over the top, in my opinion. There is little need to use five primary source quotes to tell the reader that it was hot the day of the battle. Also, the use of multiple quotes to let the reader know that Jackson doffed his cap at the 13th Virginia was excessive. I also did not enjoy the way that Mr. Krick's narrative floated around the battle. True it was a relatively short and messy affair, with the battle lasting roughly two hours, but to focus on the corn field battle and then spend 100 pages on the two hours of fighting at the wheat field and then go to Ewell's troops on Cedar mountain only to finally return to the fighting at the corn field after finishing the battle narrative of the wheat field was a little much for me. It is true that the wheat field fighting was the crux of the battle with Gen. Banks' men routing most of the Confederates who were positioned there, well honestly most of Jackson's force, but it would have helped me mentally follow the flow of the battle if Mr. Krick's narrative flowed a little more chronologically than he wrote his book. Also, I wish that Mr. Krick was able to give a more detailed look at the Union side of the battle, to balance the book a little more. Of course if he did that, then the book title would probably need changing.

Overall, this was an interesting read and a very detailed look at the short battle of Cedar Mountain. If you are a student of the American Civil War, I would recommend this book. If you are interested in the smaller battles of the war that generally get the short shrift, then this is a great book. If however you are interested in the Union side of the battle, it would be better to look elsewhere.