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"Readers appreciative of the high-level research and narrative interpretation skills displayed in Newsome's earlier military study Richmond Must Fall will find the same qualities here . . . In a narrative that details battlefield events and analyzes their military, political, and social contexts in equal measure, The Fight for the Old North State is an excellent history of an understudied late-war offensive that was a rare (though qualified) Confederate success. While racial and political violence were certainly not new to 1864, Newsome's account of the campaign also usefully portrays it as a clear, early demonstration that the coming year's increasingly frequent confrontations between the most volatile combinations of battlefield combatants would be characterized by rising levels of lethal violence. Highly recommended." - Civil War Books and Authors blog"... meticulously researched and confidently written new monograph .... [Newsome] places the campaign's military component within a larger political and social context, and he provides astute analytical insights in both his own words and those of contemporaries." - America's Civil War
"... a detailed, fact-filled journey through joint land and water operations by the Federals and Confederates in their struggle for North Carolina during the early part of 1864 ... the social and political climate is expertly relayed ... Hampton Newsome's recommended book tells the chain of events - the highs and lows, the bumbling and the courageous, from January to May, 1864 in the Old North State. It's all here." - Joan Wenner, Civil War News