Peninsula Campaign of 1862

The Peninsula Campaign, by David Martin is a very fine account of this campaign. It has all of the important information, yet is lacks the depth of Stephen Sears' account of this campaign. Martin's book, however, has a wealth of information on selected personalities involved in this campaign aside from the actual conflict. The two criticisms I have of this work are that it contains no footnotes and only a marginal bibliography. In fairness, the book was written in 1992, and information was more difficult to obtain on this campaign at that time. Secondly, the index could have been more extensive. For example, Gregg's Brigade is not found in the index, yet the brigade is covered well in the text itself. Overall, this is a good source for the average Civil War enthusiast.

This book is an entry in Combined Books' "Great Campaigns" series. This was the second book I ever bought on the Peninsula Campaign. It's a good read, but is more for beginners rather than someone who knows a lot about the campaign already. The maps are mostly copied straight from "Battles and Leaders", but there is an attempt at Rebel Brigade strengths and Union Division strengths which is somewhat interesting. 254 pp., 14 maps