Book description
" John D. Imboden is an important but often overlooked figure in
Civil War history. With only limited militia training, the Virginia
lawyer and politician rose to the rank of brigadier general in the
Confederate Army and commanded the Shenandoah Valley District, which had
been created for Stonewall Jackson. Imboden organized and led the
Staunton Artillery in the capture of the U. S. arsenal at Harper's
Ferry. He participated in the First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas and
organized a cavalry command that fought alongside Stonewall Jackson in
his Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The Jones/Imboden Raid into West
Virginia cut the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and ravaged the Kanawha
Valley petroleum fields. Imboden covered the Confederate withdrawal from
Gettysburg and later led cavalry accompanying Jubal Early in his
operations against Philip Sheridan in Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley
Campaign. Imboden completed his war service in command of Confederate
prisons in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Spencer C. Tucker fully
examines the life of this Confederate cavalry commander, including
analysis of Imboden's own post-war writing, and explores overlooked
facets of his life, such as his involvement in the Confederate prison
system, his later efforts to restore the economic life of his home state
of Virginia by developing its natural resources, and his founding of the
city of Damascus, which he hoped to make into a new iron and steel
center. Spencer C. Tucker, John Biggs Professor of Military History at
the Virginia Military Institute, is the author of Vietnam and the author
or editor of several other books on military and naval history. He lives
in Lexington, Virginia.
