Year of Glory

No commander during the Civil War is more closely identified
with the "cavalier mystique" as Major General J.E.B. (Jeb) Stuart. And none
played a more prominent role during the brief period when the hopes of the
nascent Confederacy were at their apex, when it appeared as though the Army of
Northern Virginia could not be restrained from establishing Southern
nationhood.

Jeb Stuart was not only successful in leading Robert E. Lee's
cavalry in dozens of campaigns and raids, but for riding magnificent horses,
dressing outlandishly, and participating in balls and parties that epitomized
the "moonlight and magnolia" image of the Old South. Longstreet reported that at
the height of the Battle of Second Manasses, Stuart rode off singing, "If you
want to have good time, jine the cavalry . . ." Porter Alexander remembered him
singing, in the midst of the miraculous victory at Chancellorsville, "Old Joe
Hooker, won't you come out of the Wilderness?"

Stuart was blessed with an
unusually positive personality-always upbeat, charming, boisterous, and
humorous, remembered as the only man who could make Stonewall Jackson laugh,
reciting poetry when not engaged in battle, and yet never using alcohol or other
stimulants. Year of Glory focuses on the twelve months in which Stuart's
reputation was made, following his career on an almost day-to-day basis from
June 1862, when Lee took command of the army, to June 1863, when Stuart turned
north to regain a glory slightly tarnished at Brandy Station, but found
Gettysburg instead.

It is told through the eyes of the men who rode with
him, as well as Jeb's letters, reports, and anecdotes handed down over 150
years. It was a year like no other, filled with exhilaration at the imminent
creation of a new country. This was a period when it could hardly be imagined
that the cause, and Stuart himself, could dissolve into grief, Jeb ultimately
separated from the people he cherished most.