Extraordinary Circumstances

Brian K. Burton is Dean and Professor of Management at the College of Business and Economics, Western Washington University. He is author of The Peninsula and Seven Days: A Battlefield Guide.

"A full and measured account marked by a clear narrative and an interesting strategy of alternating the testimony of generals with their grand plans and the foot soldiers who had to move, shoot, and communicate in the smoky underbrush."—The Virginia Magazine"A well-written, thoroughly researched study of the Seven Days. . . . Provides thorough and reasonable analyses of the commanders on both sides."—Georgia Historical Quarterly"A welcome addition to scholarship that should be the standard work on its subject for some time to come."—Journal of Military History"A thoroughly researched and well-written volume that will surely be the starting point for those interested in this particular campaign."—Journal of American History

• 1. "The Nation Has Been Making Progress"2. "How Are We to Get at Those People"3. "The Responsibility Cannot Be Thrown on My Shoulders"4. "Charging Batteries Is Highly Dangerous"5. "Little Powell Will Do His Full Duty To-Day"6. "We're Holding Them, But It's Getting Hotter and Hotter"7. "I Have A Regiment That Can Take It"8. "You Have Done Your Best to Sacrifice This Army"9. "His Only Course Seemed to Me Was to Make for James River"10. "But What Do You Think? Is the Enemy in Large Force?"11. "He Has Other Important Duty to Perform"12. "Why, Those Men Are Rebels!"13. "We've Got Him"14. "He . . . Rose and Walked Off in Silence"15. "I Thought I Heard Firing"16. "It Is Nothing When You Get Used to It"17. "We Had Better Let Him Alone"18. "Press Forward You Whole Line and Follow Up Armistead's Success"19. "General Macgruder, Why Did You Attack?"20. "The Thickest Red Mud Imaginable"21. "Under Ordinary Circumstances the Federal Army Should Have Been Destroyed"Important Persons in the Seven Days CampaignOrders of BattleAppendicesNotesBibliographyIndex