Road Reads

"Jeff Shaara's Civil War Battlefields," by Jeff Shaara

BOOK: "Jeff Shaara's Civil War Battlefields," by Jeff Shaara (Ballantine, $18.95)

TARGET AUDIENCE: People who think they're not interested in the Civil War.

You're only 15 years old; you aren't supposed to be here. Yet you're chasing retreating Union soldiers -- through muck so dense it pulls the shoes right off your feet. The story of the Virginia Military Institute cadets thrown into the 1864 Battle of New Market is merely one of several compelling stories in this combination guidebook/military history/story book. Shaara, author of the Civil War novels "Gods and Generals" and "The Last Full Measure," focuses on the human element and the unexpected twist. Those retreating Yankees, for example, were commanded by a German general, who, when agitated, gave commands in German to uncomprehending American subordinates.

Shaara takes us to 10 major battlefield groups, many of them now within an easy drive from Washington. "What happened here" opens each site description, followed by "Why is this battle important?" Each concludes with "What you should see." Many battlefields have been painstakingly preserved, including the "witness trees," the living connections between us and the soldiers who fought and died there.

-- Jerry V. Haines