Download or read book The Overland Campaign 4 May 15 June 1864 written by David W. Hogan and published by Department of the Army. This book was released on 2014 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1864, the Civil War s two legendary military leaders, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, confronted each other on the battlefield for the first time. Part of the U.S. Army s commemorative series of the Civil War, The Overland Campaign, 4 May 15 June 1864, by David W. Hogan, Jr. tells the story of the clash of these two titans through the burning scrub brush of the Wilderness, the bitter struggle for the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania Court House, the cavalry encounter at Yellow Tavern, the maneuvering along the North Anna River, and the tragedy of Cold Harbor. It also provides analysis in light of the latest scholarship. This brochure includes eight maps and twenty-two illustrations. High school students and teachers that are learning and preparing research papers about the American Civil War may be interested in this illustrated resource. Additionally, military personnel, especially military historians, military science students, and American citizens may be interested in this book."
Download or read book Staff Ride Handbook For The Overland Campaign Virginia 4 May To 15 June 1864 written by Dr. Curtis S. King and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains more than 100 maps, diagrams and illustrations The Staff Ride Handbook for the Overland Campaign, Virginia, 4 May to 15 June 1864, is the tenth study in the Combat Studies Institute’s (CSI) Staff Ride Handbook series. This handbook analyzes Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant’s 1864 Overland Campaign from the crossing of the Rapidan River on 4 May to the initiation of the crossing of the James River on 15 June. Unlike many of CSI’s previous handbooks, this handbook focuses on the operational level of war. Even so, it provides a heavy dose of tactical analysis, thereby making this ride a superb tool for developing Army leaders at almost all levels. Designed to be completed in three days, this staff ride is flexible enough to allow units to conduct a one-day or two-day ride that will still enable soldiers to gain a full range of insights offered by the study of this important campaign. In developing their plan for conducting an Overland Campaign staff ride, unit commanders are encouraged to consider analyzing the wide range of military problems associated with warfighting that this study offers. This campaign provides a host of issues to be examined, to include logistics, intelligence, psychological operations, use of reconnaissance (or lack thereof), deception, leadership, engineering, campaign planning, soldier initiative, and many other areas relevant to the modern military professional. Each of these issues, and others also analyzed herein, are as germane to us today as they were 150 years ago.
Download or read book The Overland Campaign 4 May 15 June 1864 written by David W. Hogan and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Overland Campaign 4 May 15 June 1864 Illustrated Edition written by David W. Hogan Jr. and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes 8 maps and numerous other illustrations One hundred and fifty years ago this spring, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant launched the campaign that marked the beginning of the end of the American Civil War. For over a month, he and General Robert E. Lee were locked in a remorseless struggle that took their armies across the woodlands and farm clearings of central Virginia on the road to the Southern capital of Richmond. In the Wilderness, Union and Confederate soldiers battled in an almost trackless forest in which the opposing sides could hardly see each other and the severely wounded fell victim to spreading flames from underbrush set afire. At Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle, for over twenty hours, opposing troops grappled from opposite sides of a breastwork in a pouring rain in some of the fiercest hand-to–hand fighting of the entire war. At Cold Harbor, perhaps 5,000 Federal troops fell in the first hour of a hopeless, bungled attack that Grant would forever regret having ordered. And at Yellow Tavern, Union horsemen cut down the great Confederate cavalry leader, Maj. Gen. James E. B. “Jeb” Stuart. The myth of chivalry that Stuart represented could find no room in a grim, pitiless contest that inflicted almost 100,000 casualties, went far toward ruining two great American armies, and foreshadowed the massive industrial conflicts of the twentieth century. Yet, after six weeks of bitter, unrelenting combat, the nation was that much closer to Appomattox Court House and eventual reunion.
Download or read book The Overland Campaign written by United States United States Army and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-01-17 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destructive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year struggle. Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown in the earliest days of the republic's founding, primarily over the existence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way to paper over the division of the country into two camps: one that was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit its spread and then to abolish it Our nation was indeed "half slave and half free;' and that could not stand. Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passions and emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring states' rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic of being convinced that they were "worth" three of the soldiers on the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the profession of arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to seem like cowards. Sometimes issues of national impact shrink to nothing in the intensely personal world of cannon shell and minie ball.
Download or read book The Overland CampaignMay 4 June 15 1864 written by David Hogan, Jr. and published by . This book was released on 2016-02-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Overland Campaign written by United States United States Army and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-06-10 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destructive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year struggle. Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown in the earliest days of the republic's founding, primarily over the existence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way to paper over the division of the country into two camps: one that was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit its spread and then to abolish it Our nation was indeed "half slave and half free;' and that could not stand. Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passions and emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring states' rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic of being convinced that they were "worth" three of the soldiers on the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the profession of arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to seem like cowards. Sometimes issues of national impact shrink to nothing in the intensely personal world of cannon shell and minie ball.
Download or read book Staff Ride Handbook for the Overland Campaign Virginia 4 May to 15 June 1864 A Study in Operational Level Command written by and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book No Turning Back written by Robert M. Dunkerly and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2014-03-19 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[T]here will be no turning back,” said Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. It was May, 1864. The Civil War had dragged into its fourth spring. It was time to end things, Grant resolved, once and for all. With the Union Army of the Potomac as his sledge, Grant crossed the Rapidan River, intending to draw the Army of Northern Virginia into one final battle. Short of that, he planned “to hammer continuously against the armed forces of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him . . . .” Almost immediately, though, Robert E. Lee’s Confederates brought Grant to bay in the thick tangle of the Wilderness. Rather than retreat, as other army commanders had done in the past, Grant outmaneuvered Lee, swinging left and south. There was, after all, no turning back. “I intend to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer,” Grant vowed. And he did: from the dark, close woods of the Wilderness to the Muleshoe of Spotsylvania, to the steep banks of the North Anna River, to the desperate charges of Cold Harbor. The 1864 Overland Campaign would be a nonstop grind of fighting, maneuvering, and marching, much of it in rain and mud, with casualty lists longer than anything yet seen in the war. In No Turning Back: A Guide to the 1864 Overland Campaign, from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May 4 - June 13, 1864, historians Robert M. Dunkerly, Donald C. Pfanz, and David R. Ruth allow readers to follow in the footsteps of the armies as they grapple across the Virginia landscape. Pfanz spent his career as a National Park Service historian on the battlefields where the campaign began; Dunkerly and Ruth work on the battlefields where it concluded. Few people know the ground, or the campaign, better.
Download or read book Transforming Under Fire the Atlanta Campaign of 1864 Illustrated Edition written by Mark G. Elam and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes Civil War Map and Illustrations Pack - 224 battle plans, campaign maps and detailed analyses of actions spanning the entire period of hostilities. Many historians give William Sherman total credit for the success of the Atlanta Campaign, when in fact it was the success of the Federal team as an institution. Conversely, many blame Joseph Johnston for the Confederate loss in that campaign, when in fact he was only one cog in the Confederate war machine. It was beyond Johnston ‘s ability to adapt if President Jefferson Davis and the rest of the Confederate team failed in fulfilling their duties. More importantly, the Federal team adapted during the middle of the war. In short they were able to transform the way they fought the war. The Confederates in the west were never able to do the same.
Download or read book The Overland Campaign written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-21 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures of the battles' important generals. *Includes several maps of the battles. *Includes accounts of the fighting written by generals and soldiers. *Includes a Bibliography of each battle for further reading. "Grant and Lee were about as evenly matched in military talent as any two opposing generals have ever been. Grant's strength was unwavering adherence to his strategic objective. He made mistakes, but the overall pattern of his campaign reveals an innovative general employing thoughtful combinations of maneuver and force to bring a difficult adversary to bay on his home turf. Lee's strength was resilience and the fierce devotion that he inspired in his troops. He, too, made mistakes and often placed his smaller army in peril. But each time-Spotsylvania Court House and the North Anna River come to mind-he improvised solutions that turned bad situations his way." - Gordon C. Rhea The Overland Campaign that pitted Robert E. Lee against Ulysses S. Grant is one of the most famous campaigns of the Civil War, and perhaps its greatest chess match. While Grant sought to destroy Lee's Army of Northern Virginia along the way to Richmond, Lee aimed to defend his capital while staying alert for a golden opportunity to strike a decisive blow against Grant's Army of the Potomac. The result was an incredibly costly campaign that saw 4 major battles and near continuous fighting in May and June 1864. At the Battle of the Wilderness (May 5-7, 1864), Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee had fought to a standstill in their first encounter, failing to dislodge each other despite incurring nearly 30,000 casualties between the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Despite the fierce fighting, Grant continued to push his battered but resilient army south, hoping to beat Lee's army to the crossroads at Spotsylvania Court House, but Lee's army beat Grant's to Spotsylvania and began digging in, setting the scene for on and off fighting from May 8-21 that ultimately inflicted more casualties than the Battle of the Wilderness. In fact, with over 32,000 casualties among the two sides, it was the deadliest battle of the Overland Campaign. After Spotsylvania, Grant and Lee both raced to the next natural defensive line, the North Anna River, where Lee sprang a trap for Grant by establishing an inverted V as a defensive line, with the salient touching the North Anna River, which would allow the Army of Northern Virginia to use interior lines to fall upon the separate wings of the Union army if it tried to cross the river. As fate would have it, Grant would fall into Lee's trap, only for Lee to be debilitated by illness at the crucial moments, allowing Grant to realize the potential mistake and avoid a major pitched battle. By the time the two armies reached Cold Harbor near the end of May 1864, Grant incorrectly thought that Lee's army was on the verge of collapse. On June 3, 1864, sensing he could break Lee's army, Grant ordered a full out assault at dawn in the hopes of catching the rebels before they could fully entrench. Although the story of Union soldiers pinning their names on the back of their uniforms in anticipation of death at Cold Harbor is apocryphal, the frontal assault on June 3 inflicted thousands of Union casualties in about half an hour. In just minutes, 7,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded as 30,000 Confederate soldiers successfully held the line against 50,000 Union troops, losing just 1,500 men in the process. The Overland Campaign stunned Americans in 1864, but Cold Harbor would be the last major battle of the Overland Campaign because Grant would reach his objective by stealing a march on Lee to cross the James River, beginning the actions that would lead to the siege of Petersburg. This book chronicles the campaign with analysis of the generalship, accounts by generals and soldiers, pictures, and more.
Download or read book With General Sheridan In Lee s Last Campaign Illustrated Edition written by Lt.-Col Frederic Cushman Newhall and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes Civil War Map and Illustrations Pack - 224 battle plans and campaign maps “Descended from English and colonial high society-Newhall lived a life of privilege and opportunity. When the war erupted Newhall enlisted in the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry and served his various assignments honorably as he rose through the ranks until attaining the position of assistant adjutant to General Sheridan in Feb. 1865. “This memoir serves two purposes...Newhall not only rehashes the climactic days of April 1865, he acts as defense counsel for Sheridan’s misunderstood character and for his contentious decision to remove Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren from command of the Fifth Corps following the Union victory at Five Forks. “Newhall opens his memoir with a fiercely loyal vindication of General Sheridan the man and General Sheridan the soldier. Habits common to many Civil War soldiers like cigars and swearing were apparently comfortable within the confines of Philip Sheridan...He then seeks to secure the Union Cavalry’s nascent reputation as a valuable component of the Union war effort. “Newhall’s rabid defense of Sheridan then subsides as he trades the pulpit for a podium. He describes in surprising detail the progressions of Five Forks and Saylor’s Creek as well as the fracases, reconnaissance missions, and “rides” between the two battles. The battle descriptions emphasize the labors of the Union horsemen but do not ignore the infantry and give appropriate credit where it is due. “The longest portion of the memoir not only recounts the battles fought but leads the reader on a tour of the final footsteps of both armies making temporal and spatial sense of places like Dinwiddie Courthouse, Jetersville, Burkeville, Prince Edward Courthouse, Appomattox Station, and Appomattox Courthouse. A series of maps helps the reader though this section of the memoir and is invaluable in their assistance.”- Chuck Romig, The Civil War News
Download or read book Grant s Campaign in Virginia The Wilderness Campaign 1864 written by Captain Vaughan-Sawyer and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes Civil War Map and Illustrations Pack – 224 battle plans, campaign maps, and detailed analyses of actions spanning the entire period of hostilities. The high-tide of Confederate success had passed with Pickett’s charge at the battle of Gettysburg; the Union armies were re-invigorated by fresh leadership under Lieut.-General U.S. Grant, who decided upon a campaign that was to push toward the Confederate capital of Virginia through Spotsylvania. The area over which Grant intended to advance was sparsely populated, inaccessible and densely wooded, and his troops’ numerical superiority could only be used in the few open areas for a general action. Grant knew that his troops would have to move in separate columns, if only to concentrate for concerted action. General Lee moved to attack the Union troops as they moved into position, before the numerical advantage in open country would spell doom to Confederate hopes. The fighting was confused and bloody; but despite the losses of the Union army, which exceeded the losses of the Confederates greatly, Grant ground onward for he knew that he could afford the casualties better than his enemy. This book is part of the Special Campaigns series produced around the turn of the 20th century by serving or recently retired British and Indian Army officers. They were intended principally for use by British officers seeking a wider knowledge of military history. Captain Vaughan-Sawyer served in the Indian army for all his adult life before falling in the opening months of the First World War. His excellent book is evidence of a life cut short. Author — Captain Vaughan-Sawyer (1875-1914) – 224 additional maps have been added.
Download or read book A Season of Slaughter written by Chris Mackowski and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2013-05-05 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping narrative of one of the Civil War’s most consequential engagements. In the spring of 1864, the newly installed Union commander Ulysses S. Grant did something none of his predecessors had done before: He threw his army against the wily, audacious Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia over and over again. At Spotsylvania Court House, the two armies shifted from stalemate in the Wilderness to slugfest in the mud. Most commonly known for the horrific twenty-two-hour hand-to-hand combat in the pouring rain at the Bloody Angle, the battle of Spotsylvania Court House actually stretched from May 8 to 21, 1864—fourteen long days of battle and maneuver. Grant, the irresistible force, hammering with his overwhelming numbers and unprecedented power, versus Lee, the immovable object, hunkered down behind the most formidable defensive works yet seen on the continent. Spotsylvania Court House represents a chess match of immeasurable stakes between two master opponents. This clash is detailed in A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May –21, 1864. A Season of Slaughter is part of the new Emerging Civil War Series offering compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War’s most important stories. The masterful storytelling is richly enhanced with hundreds of photos, illustrations, and maps. “[A] wonderful book for anyone interested in learning about the fighting around Spotsylvania Court House or who would like to tour the area. It is well written, easy to read, and well worth the price.” —Civil War News
Download or read book The Sword Of The Union written by Dr. Howard M. Hensel and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes Civil War Map and Illustrations Pack – 224 battle plans, campaign maps and detailed analyses of actions spanning the entire period of hostilities. In this work, Dr. Howard Hensel has analyzed the national objectives, grand and national military strategies, and theater operations of the United States government and the Union army during the four year conflict. In addition to contributing to a better understanding of these aspects of Federal war policy, Dr. Hensel has drawn generalizable conclusions from the actions of the Washington politico-military leadership. Of particular interest is the typology of offensively oriented, generic military strategies constructed from the experience of the Federal high command and its armies during this traumatic war.
Download or read book On to Petersburg written by Gordon C. Rhea and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-09-06 with total page 607 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With On to Petersburg, Gordon C. Rhea completes his much-lauded history of the Overland Campaign, a series of Civil War battles fought between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in southeastern Virginia in the spring of 1864. Having previously covered the campaign in his magisterial volumes on The Battle of the Wilderness, The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, To the North Anna River, and Cold Harbor, Rhea ends this series with a comprehensive account of the last twelve days of the campaign, which concluded with the beginning of the siege of Petersburg. On to Petersburg follows the Union army’s movement to the James River, the military response from the Confederates, and the initial assault on Petersburg, which Rhea suggests marked the true end of the Overland Campaign. Beginning his account in the immediate aftermath of Grant’s three-day attack on Confederate troops at Cold Harbor, Rhea argues that the Union general’s primary goal was not—as often supposed—to take Richmond, but rather to destroy Lee’s army by closing off its retreat routes and disrupting its supply chains. While Grant struggled at times to communicate strategic objectives to his subordinates and to adapt his army to a faster-paced, more flexible style of warfare, Rhea suggests that the general successfully shifted the military landscape in the Union’s favor. On the rebel side, Lee and his staff predicted rightly that Grant would attempt to cross the James River and lay siege to the Army of Northern Virginia while simultaneously targeting Confederate supply lines. Rhea examines how Lee, facing a better-provisioned army whose troops outnumbered Lee’s two to one, consistently fought the Union army to an impasse, employing risky, innovative field tactics to counter Grant’s forces. Like the four volumes that preceded it, On to Petersburg represents decades of research and scholarship and will stand as the most authoritative history of the final battles in the campaign.
Download or read book The Army of the Potomac in the Overland and Petersburg Campaigns written by Steven E. Sodergren and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2017-06-05 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The final year of the Civil War witnessed a profound transformation in the practice of modern warfare, a shift that produced unprecedented consequences for the soldiers fighting on the front lines. In The Army of the Potomac in the Overland and Petersburg Campaigns, Steven E. Sodergren examines the transition to trench warfare, the lengthy campaigns of attrition that resulted, and how these seemingly grim new realities affected the mindset and morale of Union soldiers. The 1864 Overland Campaign created tremendous physical and emotional suffering for the men of the Army of the Potomac as they faced a remarkable increase in the level and frequency of combat. By the end of this critical series of battles, surviving Union soldiers began to express considerable doubt in their cause and their leaders, as evidenced by widespread demoralization and the rising number of men deserting and disobeying orders. Yet, while the Petersburg campaign that followed further exposed the Army of the Potomac to the horrors of trench warfare, it proved both physically and psychologically regenerative. Comprehending that the extensive fortification network surrounding them benefitted their survival, soldiers quickly adjusted to life in the trenches despite the harsh conditions. The army’s static position allowed the Union logistical structure to supply the front lines with much-needed resources like food and mail—even a few luxuries. The elevated morale that resulted, combined with the reelection of Abraham Lincoln in November 1864 and the increasing number of deserters from the Confederate lines, only confirmed the growing belief among the soldiers in the trenches that Union victory was inevitable. Taken together, these aspects of the Petersburg experience mitigated the negative effects of trench warfare and allowed men to adapt more easily to their new world of combat. Sodergren explores the many factors that enabled the Army of the Potomac to endure the brutal physical conditions of trench warfare and emerge with a renewed sense of purpose as fighting resumed on the open battlefield in 1865. Drawing from soldiers’ letters and diaries, official military correspondence, and court-martial records, he paints a vivid picture of the daily lives of Union soldiers as they witnessed the beginnings of a profound shift in the way the world imagined and waged large-scale warfare.
