Download or read book To the North Anna River written by Gordon C. Rhea and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2005-09-01 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With To the North Anna River, the third book in his outstanding five-book series, Gordon C. Rhea continues his spectacular narrative of the initial campaign between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in the spring of 1864. May 13 through 25, a phase oddly ignored by historians, was critical in the clash between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. During those thirteen days -- an interlude bracketed by horrific battles that riveted the public's attention -- a game of guile and endurance between Grant and Lee escalated to a suspenseful draw on Virginia's North Anna River. From the bloodstained fields of the Mule Shoe to the North Anna River, with Meadow Bridge, Myers Hill, Harris Farm, Jericho Mills, Ox Ford, and Doswell Farm in between, grueling night marches, desperate attacks, and thundering cavalry charges became the norm for both Grant's and Lee's men. But the real story of May 13--25 lay in the two generals' efforts to outfox each other, and Rhea charts their every step and misstep. Realizing that his bludgeoning tactics at the Bloody Angle were ineffective, Grant resorted to a fast-paced assault on Lee's vulnerable points. Lee, outnumbered two to one, abandoned the offensive and concentrated on anticipating Grant's maneuvers and shifting quickly enough to repel them. It was an amazingly equal match of wits that produced a gripping, high-stakes bout of warfare -- a test, ultimately, of improvisation for Lee and of perseverance for Grant.
Download or read book Strike Them a Blow written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil War historian and author of A Season of Slaughter continues his engaging account of the Overland Campaign in this vivid chronicle. By May of 1864, Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant had resolved to destroy his Confederate adversaries through attrition if by no other means. Meanwhile, his Confederate counterpart, Robert E. Lee, looked for an opportunity to regain the offensive initiative. “We must strike them a blow,” he told his lieutenants. But Grant’s war of attrition began to take its toll in a more insidious way. Both army commanders—exhausted and fighting off illness—began to feel the continuous, merciless grind of combat in very personal ways. Punch-drunk tired, they began to second-guess themselves, missing opportunities and making mistakes. As a result, along the banks of the North Anna River, commanders on both sides brought their armies to the brink of destruction without even knowing it.
Download or read book Cold Harbor to the Crater written by Gary W. Gallagher and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-07-24 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the end of May and the beginning of August 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Robert E. Lee oversaw the transition between the Overland campaign—a remarkable saga of maneuvering and brutal combat—and what became a grueling siege of Petersburg that many months later compelled Confederates to abandon Richmond. Although many historians have marked Grant's crossing of the James River on June 12–15 as the close of the Overland campaign, this volume interprets the fighting from Cold Harbor on June 1–3 through the battle of the Crater on July 30 as the last phase of an operation that could have ended without a prolonged siege. The contributors assess the campaign from a variety of perspectives, examining strategy and tactics, the performances of key commanders on each side, the centrality of field fortifications, political repercussions in the United States and the Confederacy, the experiences of civilians caught in the path of the armies, and how the famous battle of the Crater has resonated in historical memory. As a group, the essays highlight the important connections between the home front and the battlefield, showing some of the ways in which military and nonmilitary affairs played off and influenced one another. Contributors include Keith S. Bohannon, Stephen Cushman, M. Keith Harris, Robert E. L. Krick, Kevin M. Levin, Kathryn Shively Meier, Gordon C. Rhea, and Joan Waugh.
Download or read book The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7 12 1864 written by Gordon C. Rhea and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2005-03-01 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume in Gordon C. Rhea's peerless five-book series on the Civil War's 1864 Overland Campaign abounds with Rhea's signature detail, innovative analysis, and riveting prose. Here Rhea examines the maneuvers and battles from May 7, 1864, when Grant left the Wilderness, through May 12, when his attempt to break Lee's line by frontal assault reached a chilling climax at what is now called the Bloody Angle. Drawing exhaustively upon previously untapped materials, Rhea challenges conventional wisdom about this violent clash of titans to construct the ultimate account of Grant and Lee at Spotsylvania.
Download or read book Cold Harbor written by Gordon C. Rhea and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2007-04 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gordon Rhea's gripping fourth volume on the spring 1864 campaign-which pitted Ulysses S. Grant against Robert E. Lee for the first time in the Civil War-vividly re-creates the battles and maneuvers from the stalemate on the North Anna River through the Cold Harbor offensive. Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864 showcases Rhea's tenacious research which elicits stunning new facts from the records of a phase oddly ignored or mythologized by historians. In clear and profuse tactical detail, Rhea tracks the remarkable events of those nine days, giving a surprising new interpretation of.
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 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 Outlawed written by Anna North and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK * INDIE NEXT SELECTION * LIBRARY READS SELECTION * AMAZON EDITORS' CHOICE * WASHINGTON POST BEST OF THE YEAR The "terrifying, wise, tender, and thrilling" (R.O. Kwon) adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West. In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all. Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.
Download or read book Hell Itself written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Civil War historian recounts the first battle between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—a bloody and horrifying conflict in the Wilderness of Virginia. Known simply as the Wilderness, soldiers called the seventy square miles of dense Virginian forest one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom.” Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror. Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the Overland Campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Thick underbrush made for difficult movement and low visibility. And these challenges were terrifyingly compounded by the outbreak of fires that burned casualties and left both sided blinded in a sea of smoke. Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said. Another called it “Hell itself.”
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 In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee written by Gordon C. Rhea and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2007-09-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In early May 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant initiated a drive through central Virginia to crush Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. For forty days, the armies fought a grinding campaign from the Rapidan River to the James River that helped decide the course of the Civil War. Several of the war's bloodiest engagements occurred in this brief period: the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, the North Anna River, Totopotomoy Creek, Bethesda Church, and Cold Harbor. Pitting Grant and Lee against one another for the first time in the war, the Overland Campaign, as this series of battles and maneuvers came to be called, represents military history at its most intense. In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee, a unique blend of narrative and photographic journalism from Gordon C. Rhea, the foremost authority on the Overland Campaign, and Chris E. Heisey, a leading photographer of Civil War battlefields, provides a stunning, stirring account of this deadly game of wits and will between the Civil War's foremost military commanders. Here Grant fought and maneuvered to flank Lee out of his heavily fortified earthworks. And here Lee demonstrated his genius as a defensive commander, countering Grant's every move. Adding to the melee were cavalry brawls among the likes of Philip H. Sheridan, George A. Custer, James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart, and Wade Hampton. Forty days of combat produced horrific casualties, some 55,000 on the Union side and 35,000 on the Confederate. By the time Grant crossed the James and began the Siege of Petersburg, marking an end to this maneuver, both armies had sustained significant losses that dramatically reduced their numbers. Rhea provides a rich, fast-paced narrative, movingly illustrated by more than sixty powerful color images from Heisey, who captures the many moods of these hallowed battlegrounds as they appear today. Heisey made scores of visits to the areas where Grant and Lee clashed, giving special attention to lesser-known sites on byways and private property. He captures some of central Virginia's most stunning landscapes, reminding us that though battlefields conjure visions of violence, death, and sorrow, they can also be places of beauty and contemplation. Accompanying the modern pictures are more than twenty contemporary photographs taken during the campaign or shortly afterwards, some of them never before published. At once an engaging military history and a vivid pictorial journey, In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee offers a fresh vision of some of the country's most significant historic sites.
Download or read book Flyfisher s Guide to Virginia written by David Hart and published by Wilderness Adventures Press. This book was released on 2006-09 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 The Summer of 63 Gettysburg written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An outstanding read for anyone interested in the Civil War and Gettysburg in particular . . . innovative and thoughtful ideas on seemingly well-covered events.” —The NYMAS Review The largest land battle on the North American continent has maintained an unshakable grip on the American imagination. Building on momentum from a string of victories that stretched back into the summer of 1862, Robert E. Lee launched his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on an invasion of the North meant to shake Union resolve and fundamentally shift the dynamic of the war. His counterpart with the Federal Army of the Potomac, George Meade, elevated to command just days before the fighting, found himself defending his home state in a high-stakes battle that could have put Confederates at the very gates of the nation’s capital. The public historians writing for the popular Emerging Civil War blog, speaking on its podcast, or delivering talks at the annual Emerging Civil War Symposium at Stevenson Ridge in Virginia always present their work in ways that engage and animate audiences. Their efforts entertain, challenge, and sometimes provoke readers with fresh perspectives and insights born from years of working on battlefields, guiding tours, presenting talks, and writing for the wider Civil War community. The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg is a compilation of some of their favorites, anthologized, revised, and updated, together with several original pieces. Each entry includes original and helpful illustrations. Along with its companion volume The Summer of ’63: Vicksburg and Tullahoma, this important study contextualizes the major 1863 campaigns in what was arguably the Civil War’s turning-point summer.
Download or read book The Summer of 63 Vicksburg Tullahoma written by Chris Mackowski and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An important contribution to Civil War scholarship, offering an engrossing portrait of these important campaigns . . . this reviewer recommends it highly.” —NYMAS Review The fall of Vicksburg in July 1863 fundamentally changed the strategic picture of the American Civil War, though its outcome had been anything but certain. Union general Ulysses S. Grant tried for months to capture the Confederate Mississippi River bastion, to no avail. A bold running of the river batteries, followed by a daring river crossing and audacious overland campaign, finally allowed Grant to pen the Southern army inside the entrenched city. The long and gritty siege that followed led to the fall of the city, the opening of the Mississippi to Union traffic, and a severance of the Confederacy in two. In Tennessee, meanwhile, the Union Army of the Cumberland brilliantly recaptured thousands of square miles while sustaining fewer than six hundred casualties. Commander William Rosecrans worried the North would “overlook so great an event because it is not written in letters of blood”—and history proved him right. The Tullahoma campaign has stood nearly forgotten compared to events along the Mississippi and in south-central Pennsylvania, yet all three major Union armies scored significant victories that helped bring the war closer to an end. The public historians writing for the popular Emerging Civil War blog, speaking on its podcast, or delivering talks at its annual Emerging Civil War Symposium in Virginia always present their work in ways that engage and animate audiences. Their efforts entertain, challenge, and sometimes provoke with fresh perspectives and insights born from years of working at battlefields, guiding tours, and writing for the wider Civil War community. The Summer of ’63: Vicksburg and Tullahoma is a compilation of some of their favorites, anthologized, revised, and updated, together with several original pieces. Each entry includes helpful illustrations. This important study, when read with its companion volume The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg, contextualizes the major 1863 campaigns in what arguably was the Civil War’s turning-point summer.
Download or read book Hurricane from the Heavens written by Daniel Davis and published by . This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LeeOCOs army is really whipped, Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant believed.May 1864 had witnessed near-constant combat between his Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Grant, unlike his predecessors, had not relented in his pounding of the Confederates. The armies clashed in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Courthouse and along the North Anna River. Whenever combat failed to break the Confederates, Grant resorted to maneuver. I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer, Grant vowedOCoand it had.Casualties mounted on both sidesOCobut Grant kept coming. Although the great, decisive assault had eluded him, he continued to punish LeeOCOs army. The blows his army landed were nothing like the Confederates had experienced before. The constant marching and fighting had reduced Robert E. LeeOCOs once-vaunted army into a bedraggled husk of its former glory.In GrantOCOs mind, he had worn his foes down and now prepared to deliver the deathblow.Turning LeeOCOs flank once more, he hoped to fight the final, decisive battle of the war in the area bordering the Pamunkey and Chickahominy rivers, less than fifteen miles from the outskirts of the Confederate capital of Richmond. I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over LeeOCOs army is already assured, Grant confided to Washington.The stakes had grown enormous. GrantOCOs staggering casualty lists had driven Northern morale to his lowest point of the war. Would LeeOCOs men hold on to defend their besieged capitalOCoand, in doing so, prolong the war until the North will collapsed entirely? Or would another round of hard fighting finally be enough to crush LeeOCOs army? Could Grant push through and end the war?Grant would find his answers around a small Virginia crossroads called Cold HarborOCoand he would always regret the results.Historians Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt have studied the 1864 Overland Campaign since their early days working at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, where Grant first started on his bloody road southOCoa road that eventually led straight into the eye of a proverbial Hurricane from the Heavens.Hurricane from the Heavens can be read in the comfort of oneOCOs favorite armchair or as a battlefield guide. It is part of the popular Emerging Civil War Series, which offers compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil WarOCOs most important stories. The masterful storytelling is richly enhanced with more than one hundred photos, illustrations, and maps."
Download or read book Your Brother in Arms written by Robert C. Plumb and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2013-09-12 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George P. McClelland, a member of the 155th Pennsylvania Infantry in the Civil War, witnessed some of the war’s most pivotal battles during his two and a half years of Union service. Death and destruction surrounded this young soldier, who endured the challenges of front line combat in the conflict Lincoln called “the fiery trial through which we pass.” Throughout his time at war, McClelland wrote to his family, keeping them abreast of his whereabouts and aware of the harrowing experiences he endured in battle. Never before published, McClelland’s letters offer fresh insights into camp life, battlefield conditions, perceptions of key leaders, and the mindset of a young man who faced the prospect of death nearly every day of his service. Through this book, the detailed experiences of one soldier—examined amidst the larger account of the war in the eastern theater—offer a fresh, personal perspective on one of our nation’s most brutal conflicts. Your Brother in Arms follows McClelland through his Civil War odyssey, from his enlistment in Pittsburgh in the summer of 1862 and his journey to Washington and march to Antietam, followed by his encounters in a succession of critical battles: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania Court House, the North Anna River, Petersburg, and Five Forks, Virginia, where he was gravely injured. McClelland’s words, written from the battlefield and the infirmary, convey his connection to his siblings and his longing for home. But even more so, they reflect the social, cultural, and political currents of the war he was fighting. With extensive detail, Robert C. Plumb expounds on McClelland’s words by placing the events described in context and illuminating the collective forces at play in each account, adding a historical outlook to the raw voice of a young soldier. Beating the odds of Civil War treatment, McClelland recovered from his injury at Five Forks and was discharged as a brevet-major in 1865—a rank bestowed on leaders who show bravery in the face of enemy fire. He was a common soldier who performed uncommon service, and the forty-two documents he and his family left behind now give readers the opportunity to know the war from his perspective. More than a book of battlefield reports, Your Brother in Arms: A Union Soldier’s Odyssey is a volume that explores the wartime experience through a soldier’s eyes, making it an engaging and valuable read for those interested in American history, the Civil War, and military history.
