McKinney’s New Book on the Battle of Brandy Station

While in Gettysburg this weekend, I picked up Joseph W. McKinney’s new book on the Battle of Brandy Station, Brandy Station, Virginia, June 9, 1863: The Largest Cavalry Battle of the Civil War. As a cavalry guy, I was eagerly looking forward to seeing this book in the hope that it would fill a huge gap in the literature. I wish I could say that I came away from reading this book believing that that huge gap has been filled. Sadly, it has not. Nevertheless, I thought I would review it here.

The Battle of Brandy Station was the opening engagement of the Gettysburg Campaign. Fought June 9, 1863 on the fields and hills of Culpeper County, Virginia, Brandy Station was the largest cavalry battle of the American Civil War. It offers a great deal of interest to any student of the Civil War, ranging from tactical lessons to great human interest stories.

Until recently, it has been badly overlooked by historians. Recent efforts have tried to remedy that situation. Historically, the only really work available on Brandy Station was Fairfax Downey’s 1959 book Clash of Cavalry: The Battle of Brandy Station. This superficial and poorly researched book was all there was until 2002, when Richard E. Crouch published his Brandy Station: A Battle Like None Other. Crouch’s book is awful–poorly researched and poorly written. There was, therefore, a huge and gaping hole in the body of Civil War literature regarding this important battle. In October 2006, McKinney’s book was published by McFarland Publishing of Jefferson, North Carolina.

McKinney is a former military officer who lives in the vicinity of the battlefield, which has given him numerous opportunities to visit the ground. To his credit, he has done so at length and clearly has a solid understanding of the terrain. Numerous photographs of pertinent locations taken by him are peppered throughout the book. Likewise, much of his analysis is solid and well grounded. His military background serves him well there.

The rest of the book leaves a great deal to be desired. McKinney depends heavily upon the passive voice–too much so–meaning that the book is very difficult to read. Instead of an engaging and enjoyable narrative, his book is difficult to read and ponderous. It really could have used the services of a good editor. Likewise, the narrative jumps around out of chronological order. Instead, he focuses on covering different aspects of the battle out of sequence, leaving an unfamiliar reader confused about the sequence of events.

The scope of the research also leaves a good bit to be desired. With over 21,000 men involved, there is a wealth of primary source research available. McKinney has covered only a portion of those sources. Notably missing, as one example, is the primary source account of Ulric Dahlgren, one of Joseph Hooker’s staff officers, who played an important role in an early phase of the battle. Dahlgren left an excellent and readily available account, but McKinney plain missed it. It’s one of many notable examples. As another example, I was unable to find a single citation to a critical primary source, The National Tribune, a veteran’s newspaper filled with decades of personal recollections by veterans who fought the Civil War. No modern battle or campaign study can be considered complete without referring to the veritable treasure trove found in the Tribune. In a recent newspaper interview, he indicated that he spent five years researching and writing this book; by contrast, Clark B. “Bud” Hall, the offiical historian of the Brandy Station Foundation, has nearly two decades into researching and writing on this battle. Perhaps McKinney should have invested more time into being more thorough in his research.

The maps are virtually worthless. They contain almost no detail and virtually no terrain features. It is, for instance, impossible to see the many hills and dales that dot the battlefield at Brandy Station, as only Fleetwood Hill and Yew Ridge are depicted. None of the other terrain features are depicted in any fashion. For a large and fluid battle such as Brandy Station, good, detailed maps filled with depictions of terrain features are absolutely essential.

Finally, the price of the book is simply outrageous. At $55 for a book that does not even have a dust jacket, it’s extremely difficult to justify the price for this book.

While this book is a significant improvement over the works of Downey and Crouch, it still leaves a great deal to be desired. The door remains wide open for the definitive work on this seminal battle. One can only hope that Bud Hall will soon finish his decades-long project and finally publish that definitive work.