Pea Ridge is a well crafted book which deals with an obscure but extremely important battle early in the Civil War. The authors present their story in a very engaging and readable style which gives a real sense of being on the frigid and tangled battlefield in Northwestern Arkansas. The two armies and their commanders are described in wonderful detail, and the action flows right from the start. After finishing the book, I was struck by just what Curtis and the Army of the Southwest had accomplished, and by how many precedents he had set for future operations. Nevertheless, his accomplishments have been largely ignored. This book helps rescue him from obscurity, and is without a doubt the definitive study of this battle. Pea Ridge is a fantastic book on the Trans-Mississippi theater of the war, and when read along with Cozzen's book on Iuka and Corinth, provides a very complete picture of the formation of Van Dorn's and Price's armies and their fate. I highly recommend this book as an essential volume on the Civil War in the West.

Shea and Hess do a wonderful job bringing to the reader the history of the understudied Trans-Mississippi campaign in the Civil War. The writing is fluid, conveys not only the historical picture but also the human picture. Furthermore, the use of numerous maps helps place the narrative in the proper perspective.

The writers excell at describing the leaders of both sides and the conflicts, bot internal and external, that they had to deal with. I was most interested in the ethnic divisions, between the Germman and native born Federals, and how that effected the cohesivness of the Union Army. General Curtis, who led the Union Army, was an amazing commander and performed feats that have unfortunately been too long ignored. From the initial decision to enter into a winter camapign, to the sucessful changing of fronts to confront the Confederate Army and finally to his masterful control of the battle, Curtis ranks with the great generals of the Civil War.

This book is an awesome description of a forgotten campaign in an area which is forgotten by most Civil War buffs. The Transmississippi remaines one of the most unexplored areas in the Civil War knowlegde (literature) and this book brings a whole lot of light in it. "Pea Ridge : Civil War Campaign in the West", should be read especially by those who still believe that the Civil War took place between Malvern Hill and Shiloh. An estonishing piece of art !

Most Civil War buffs concentrate upon the war east of the Mississippi. By comparison, the two battles of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove are obscured by their distance from the main scene. I was interested, as my g-grandfather set up and ran a field hospital at Fayetteville, during the battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas. The book is one of the best I've read in it's description of the tactics employed. Even better, the timely maps are simple, clear and placed closely to the verbage they cover. Similarly placed are short biographies of the major officers on each side of the battles. Unit narratives seldom drop below company level and the book cannot be considered an exhaustive study. But, at the end of 126 pages, a reader will have a sufficiently clear view of the events to gain a good grasp of the strategy and tactics used in these two important battles.