Battle of Spotsylvania
Wilderness Campaign - in the American Civil War, a series of engagements (May–June, 1864) fought in the Wilderness region of Virginia. Early in May, 1864, the Northern commander in chief, Grant, led the Army of the Potomac (118,000 strong) across the Rapidan River into the Wilderness, a wild and tangled woodland c.10 mi (16 km) W of Fredericksburg. Grant planned to clear the Wilderness Read More...
Wilderness Campaign - in the American Civil War, a series of engagements (May–June, 1864) fought in the Wilderness region of Virginia. Early in May, 1864, the Northern commander in chief, Grant, led the Army of the Potomac (118,000 strong) across the Rapidan River into the Wilderness, a wild and tangled woodland c.10 mi (16 km) W of Fredericksburg. Grant planned to clear the Wilderness before trying to destroy the smaller Confederate Army of Northern Virginia (60,000 troops) under Robert E. Lee. But Lee advanced on the Union troops while they were still in that area, causing Grant to face about and order an attack. The nature of the terrain made the battle of the Wilderness (May 5–6) a disjointed but bloody fight. After the repulse of a Union attack on May 6 through the opportune arrival of the 1st Corps under James Longstreet, Lee counterattacked, and the battle became stabilized. Grant then pushed ahead by Lee's right, heading toward Spotsylvania Courthouse, c.12 mi (19 km) to the southeast. Lee, anticipating the move, was soon entrenched there. In the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse (May 8–19), Grant unsuccessfully hammered away at the Confederate lines. The bloodiest fighting of this battle occurred on May 12 when the Union assault on the salient forming the Confederate center (the Bloody Angle) was repulsed after initial success. Lee confronted Grant's next move from a position S of the North Anna River, so impregnable that even Grant did not attack. By the beginning of June both armies were near Richmond. Fearing that Lee might withdraw within the defenses of the capital, Grant made another unsuccessful frontal assault on his strongly entrenched enemy in the battle of Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864. The Union lost 7,000 men in a few hours—the most horrible slaughter of the war. After several days of desultory trench fighting Grant then withdrew, crossed the James River, and moved against Petersburg. He had lost about 60,000 men in the campaign, and although Lee's army sustained the proportionately larger loss of 20,000, it was by no means destroyed. See C. Dowdy, Lee's Last Campaign (1960); E. Steere, The Wilderness Campaign (1960, repr. 1987). The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved. |
Battle of Spotsylvania
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In this comprehensive assessment of the Spotsylvania Campaign, top military historians examine one of the bloodiest clashes in the Civil War--the confrontation between Grant and Lee over a two-week period in May of 1864. 43 illustrations. 8 maps.
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This text includes specially commissioned maps, orders of battle and casualty returns based on new research. There are new insights into the campaign, particularly regarding the many innovations in infantry tactics.
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Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage
by Grady McWhiney, Perry D. Jamieson. 214 pgs.
This book is a veritable kaleidoscope, showing pictures ranging from the seemingly hyperbolic to those that are clearly representative of the finest scholarship to be found anywhere.
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Filled with fresh interpretations and information, puncturing old myths and challenging new ones, Battle Cry of Freedom will unquestionably become the standard one-volume history of the Civil War. James McPherson's fast-paced narrative fully integrates the political, social, and military events that crowded the two decades from the outbreak of one war in Mexico to the ending of another at Appomattox. Packed with drama and analytical insight, the book vividly recounts the momentous episodes that preceded the Civil War--the Dred Scott decision, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry--and then moves into a masterful chronicle of the war itself--the battles, the strategic maneuvering on both sides, the politics, and the personalities. Particularly notable are McPherson's new views on such matters as the slavery expansion issue in the 1850s, the origins of the Republican Party, the causes of secession, internal dissent and anti-war opposition in the North and the South, and the reasons for the Union's victory. The book's title refers to the sentiments that informed both the Northern and Southern views of the conflict: the South seceded in the name of that freedom of self-determination and self-government for which their fathers had fought in 1776, while the North stood fast in defense of the Union founded by those fathers as the bulwark of American liberty. Eventually, the North had to grapple with the underlying cause of the war--slavery--and adopt a policy of emancipation as a second war aim. This "new birth of freedom," as Lincoln called it, constitutes the proudest legacy of America's bloodiest conflict. This authoritative volume makes sense of that vast and confusing "second American Revolution" we call the Civil War, a war that transformed a nation and expanded our heritage of liberty.
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General Richard Stoddert Ewell holds a unique place in the history of the Army of Northern Virginia. For four months, Ewell was Stonewall Jackson's most trusted subordinate. Together they battled Union armies in the Shenandoah Valley, at Richmond, and in northern Virginia. When Jackson died in 1863, Ewell took over the Second Corps and led it with mixed success at Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. His failure to capture Cemetery Hill on the first day's fighting at Gettysburg is frequently cited as a turning point in that pivotal battle. In this biography, Donald Pfanz presents a detailed portrait of the man sometimes referred to as Stonewall Jackson's right arm. Drawing on a rich array of previously untapped source materials, including more than two hundred letters written by Ewell himself, Pfanz concludes that Ewell was a highly competent general, whose successes on the battlefield far outweighed his failures. Pfanz thoroughly examines Ewell's life before and after the Civil War. He,recounts Ewell's years at West Point, his service in the Mexican War, his experiences as a dragoon officer in Arizona and New Mexico, and his postwar career as a planter in Mississippi and Tennessee.
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Lee's Miserables: Life in the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Appomattox (Chap. 1 "The Wilderness and Spotsylvania, May 1864" and Chap. 2 "Spotsylvania, the North Anna, and Cold Harbor, May-June 1864")
by J. Tracy Power. 466 pgs.
Never did so large a proportion of the American population leave home for an extended period and produce such a detailed record of its experiences in the form of correspondence, diaries, and other papers as during the Civil War. Based on research in more than 1,200 wartime letters and diaries by more than 400 Confederate officers and enlisted men, this book offers a compelling social history of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during its final year, from May 1864 to April 1865.Organized in a chronological framework, the book uses the words of the soldiers themselves to provide a view of the army's experiences in camp, on the march, in combat, and under siege--from the battles in the Wilderness to the final retreat to Appomattox. It sheds new light on such questions as the state of morale in the army, the causes of desertion, ties between the army and the home front, the debate over arming black men in the Confederacy, and the causes of Confederate defeat. Remarkably rich and detailed, "Lee's Miserables offers a fresh look at one of the most-studied Civil War armies.
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Lee & His Army in Confederate History ("I Have to Make the Best of What I Have: Lee at Spotsylvania" begins on p. 191)
by Gary W. Gallagher. 295 pgs.
Was Robert E. Lee a gifted soldier whose only weaknesses lay in the depth of his loyalty to his troops, affection for his lieutenants, and dedication to the cause of the Confederacy? Or was he an ineffective leader and poor tactician whose reputation was drastically inflated by early biographers and Lost Cause apologists? These divergent characterizations represent the poles between which scholarly and popular opinion on Lee has swung over time. Now, in eight essays, Gary Gallagher offers his own refined thinking on Lee, exploring the relationship between Lee's operations and Confederate morale, the quality of his generalship, and the question of how best to handle his legacy in light of the many distortions that grew out of Lost Cause historiography.Using a host of contemporary sources, Gallagher demonstrates the remarkable faith that soldiers and citizens maintained in Lee's leadership even after his army's fortunes had begun to erode. Gallagher also engages aspects of the Lee myth with an eye toward how admirers have insisted that their hero's faults as a general represented exaggerations of his personal virtues. Finally, Gallagher considers whether it is useful--or desirable--to separate legitimate Lost Cause arguments from the transparently false ones relating to slavery and secession.
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