First published 2000
Noah Andre Trudeau chronicles the devastating forty-day Overland Campaign of 1864, when Ulysses S. Grant launched his final push against Robert E. Lee in Virginia. Trudeau draws from extensive eyewitness testimony to reconstruct this pivotal military operation that began the Civil War's conclusion. The narrative follows the campaign through multiple deadly engagements: the tangled fighting in Virginia's Wilderness, the vicious close combat at Spotsylvania's "Bloody Angle," Lee's tactical maneuver at North Anna River, and the slaughter at Cold Harbor. Trudeau incorporates voices from common soldiers describing their comrades' suffering, women serving as nurses, and black troops experiencing their first battles. The author weaves together personal accounts that capture individual acts of courage and soldiers' confrontations with death. Battle sketches by Edwin Forbes and Alfred R. Waud provide visual documentation. This Fletcher Pratt Award winner assembles more firsthand accounts from both Union and Confederate perspectives than any previous single volume on the campaign.
Genres: biography, history, american-civil-war, american-fiction, 20th-century, american, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, thought-provoking
Tropes: intimate
Setting: Virginia, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna River, Cold Harbor
Period: 1864
354 pages · Paperback · Louisiana State Univ Pr