Lee's Maverick General : Daniel Harvey Hill

'Bridges paints an exceptional portrait of a brilliant battlefield commander whose personal courage was remarkable even in a war where displays of bravery were commonplace' - "Civil War News". 'One of the truly indispensable Civil War biographies' - Allan Nevins. 'Beyond the vivid portrait of a bold, brilliant, but irascible man ...is the view of Southern leaders and campaigns in a new perspective.

Scrupulous honesty is exercised in distinguishing between proven fact and interesting conjecture in a lively piece of historical detection that should appeal to amateurs and scholars alike' - "Booklist." Among the high-ranking gray uniforms Daniel Harvey Hill caused a stir as a sash of red in a bullpen would.

Hot-tempered, outspoken, he stormed his way through the Civil War, leading his soldiers at Malvern Hill and Antietam, and sometimes stepping on the toes of superiors.But he was much more than a seemingly impervious shield against Union bullets: a devout Christian, a family man, a gloomy fatalist, an intellectual. "Lee's Maverick General" makes clear that he was often caught in the crossfire of military politics and ultimately made a scapegoat for the costly, barren victory at Chickamauga.

Hal Bridges, drawing on Hill's unpublished papers, offers an outsider's inside views of Lee, Jefferson Davis, Braxton Bragg, James Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, and others up and down the embattled line.

In his introduction, Gary W. Gallagher rounds out the portrait of the controversial Hill, whose reading of military affairs was always perceptive.

A professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, Gallagher is the editor of "Lee the Soldier" (Nebraska, 1996) and the author of many books, including "The Confederate War".