Stephen W. Sears

Stephen W. Sears (born 1932) is an American historian and author best known for detailed studies of the American Civil War, particularly the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac. A graduate of Oberlin College, he worked for American Heritage magazine and became an editor in its educational division before concentrating increasingly on historical writing. Sears is known for combining military analysis with extensive use of soldiers’ letters, diaries, memoirs and contemporary reports, allowing him to reconstruct battles from the perspectives of commanders and ordinary troops alike. His work pays particular attention to leadership, battlefield decision-making and the often difficult relationship between President Abraham Lincoln, his generals and the Union high command.

His major books include Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam, a study of the September 1862 campaign and the bloodiest single day of the Civil War; Chancellorsville, examining Robert E. Lee’s celebrated victory and the death of Stonewall Jackson; and Gettysburg, a comprehensive account of the 1863 campaign and three-day battle. He also wrote To the Gates of Richmond, on George McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, and George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon, a biography of the controversial Union commander. Controversies and Commanders collects essays on disputed personalities and episodes within the Army of the Potomac, while Sears has also edited collections of Civil War letters and journals. Across these works he presents the war as a combination of strategy, personality, politics and battlefield experience rather than simply a sequence of military engagements.