On 4 April 1862, Major General George McClellan marched his 121,500-strong Army of the Potomac from Fort Monroe toward Richmond. Blocking his path were Major General John B. Magruder's Warwick-Yorktown Line fortifications and the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia. Despite outnumbering Magruder almost four to one, McClellan was tricked by Magruder's bluff of strength and halted his advance. Yorktown, the scene of Washington's 1781 victory over Cornwallis, was once again besieged. It was the Civil War's first siege and lasted for twenty-nine terrible days. Just as McClellan was ready to bombard Yorktown, the Confederates slipped away because of his delays, McClellan lost the opportunity to quickly capture Richmond and end the war. Historians John V. Quarstein and J. Michael Moore chronicle the Siege of Yorktown and explore its role in the 1862 Peninsula Campaign and the final battles surrounding Richmond.

Charles Olson is often described as one of the most influential American poets of the last quarter century; some would rather describe him as a cult figure, prophet of the Black Mountain poets and their descendants. Both judgments refer to an influence exerted as much through theories as through poems. Here is an examination of Olson's understanding of poetry that is cogent and a pleasure to read. It provides the framework needed for understanding Olson's work. Mr. von Hallberg shows us the Olson of the 1950s, who tried to bring change through teaching, who wanted poetry to communicate knowledge, as well as the more private poet of the 1960s, turning from history to myth. Olson's ambitions for poetry were based on his sense of cultural politics, and the author studies the relation between Olson's politics and his poetics. He traces too Olson's relation to older poets, especially Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. His book will interest anyone reading contemporary American poetry.

Yorktown explores the rich history of one of the northernmost towns in Westchester County. With vivid images, the book follows Yorktown from its early establishment as part of the Van Cortlandt Manor, through its key role in the American Revolution, to its development as a thriving residential and business community. Nestled in the Hudson Valley, Yorktown retains its pristine natural surroundings, including Teatown Lake Reservation. It has been a farm community, a hamlet with nurseries and orchards, and a summer colony with a local theater district and artists' colony. It once served as a breadbasket and milk bar for New York City and played a part in providing the city with clean water.

July the third 1863 it seems, will forever be associated with an event known by almost everyone as “Pickett’s Charge” . . . the day more than 12,000 officers and men in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia charged forward at the Union defenses at Gettysburg. Almost since that day onward, the label given to that assault has focused on the commander of less than half of the troops who made the attack—Major General George Pickett. Pickett whose Division constituted only three of the nine brigades in the afternoon assault has become the namesake of the entire effort. Now, the story is told of the men from North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama who made that charge.