Now in paperback, this major biography of J.E.B. Stuart—the first in two decades—uses newly available documents to draw the fullest, most accurate portrait of the legendary Confederate cavalry commander ever published.• Major figure of American history: James Ewell Brown Stuart was the South’s most successful and most colorful cavalry commander during the Civil War. Like many who die young (Stuart was thirty-one when he succumbed to combat wounds), he has been romanticized and popular- ized. One of the best-known figures of the Civil War, J.E.B. Stuart is almost as important a figure in the Confederate pantheon as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
• Most comprehensive biography to date: Cavalryman of the Lost Cause is based on manuscripts and unpublished letters as well as the latest Civil War scholarship. Stuart’s childhood and family are scrutinized, as is his service in Kansas and on the frontier before the Civil War. The research in this biography makes it the authoritative work.
""One of those rare, too often overlooked figures in the Civil War pantheon, Jeb Stuart was as irresistible as he was colorful, as contentious as he was fascinating. In this endlessly absorbing biography, Jeffry Wert does him justice and then some. This richly detailed study belongs on the bookshelf of every Civil War buff, right next to the dog-eared volumes on Lincoln, Lee, Jackson, and Grant. Bravo!"" -- Jay Winik, author of April 1865: The Month That Saved America and The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800