By late June 1862, the Union army, under George B. McClellan, stood at the doorstep of Richmond. In a desperate hour for the Confederate capital, Robert E. Lee attacked McClellan and drove the Union army into a full retreat toward the safety of the James River. Lee recognized an opportunity to seal a decisive victory and commanded his Army of Northern Virginia to prevent the Union forces from retreating. A.P. Hill, James Longstreet and "Stonewall" Jackson were among those who engaged in the harrowing day of battle during the Seven Days" Campaign. Author Douglas Crenshaw details the dramatic Battle of Glendale in the Civil War.

By late June 1862, the Union army, under George B. McClellan, stood at the doorstep of Richmond. In a desperate hour for the Confederate capital, Robert E. Lee attacked McClellan and drove the Union army into a full retreat toward the safety of the James River. Lee recognized an opportunity to seal a decisive victory and commanded his Army of Northern Virginia to prevent the Union forces from retreating. A.P. Hill, James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson were among those who engaged in the harrowing day of battle during the Seven Days Campaign. Author Douglas Crenshaw details the dramatic Battle of Glendale in the Civil War."

It is commonly accepted that the South could never have won the Civil War. By chronicling perhaps the best of the South's limited opportunities to turn the tide, this provocative study argues that Confederate victory was indeed possible. On June 30, 1862, at a small Virginia crossroads known as Glendale, Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee sliced the retreating Army of the Potomac in two and came remarkably close to destroying their Federal foe. Only a string of command miscues on the part of the Confederates--and a stunning command failure by Stonewall Jackson--enabled the Union army to escape a defeat that day, one that may well have vaulted the South to its independence. Never before or after would the Confederacy come as close to transforming American history as it did at the Battle of Glendale.

After a year of fighting, armies on both sides of the American Civil War had abandoned their early optimism regarding a swift conclusion. Beset by military and political pressures, General George B. McClellan committed his Army of the Potomac to the Peninsula Campaign, with the ultimate goal of capturing Richmond and destroying the surrounding Confederates. Hampered by Lincoln's demand for troops to protect Washington, a limited Union Army engaged Confederate forces in a series of engagements in and around the community of Hanover Court House, Virginia, eventually forcing a Confederate retreat but missing the critical opportunity to press on and capture Richmond. It was an opportunity that would never come again, leading to three more years of protracted conflict, the rise of Robert E. Lee as Confederate commander, and a missed chance that haunted McClellan for the rest of his life.