Spotsylvania has received considerably less attention from historians and participant au-
thors than battles such as Antietam or Chancellorsville (not to mention Gettysburg), but
readers hoping to pursue the campaign in detail nevertheless will find many worthy titles.
For a good sampling of published material, they should consult the notes accompanying
these essays, wherein the authors cite, and sometimes evaluate, a wide range of titles.

The best source for printed primary material on Spotsylvania and the rest of the Over-
land campaign is U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the
Union and Confederate Armies, 127 vols., index, and atlas ( Washington: GPO, 1880- 1901),
ser. 1, vol. 36, pts. 1-3. Coverage of the respective armies regrettably is very unbalanced,
however, as more than go percent of the reports, correspondence, and other documents in
these volumes relate to the Federal army. Volume 6 of Supplement to the Official Records
of the Union and Confederate Armies, ed. Janet B. Hewett and others, 42 of a projected
100 vols. published to date ( Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot, 1994-), contains additional ma-
terial about both armies, including a number of official reports from important Confederate
officers.

Invaluable Confederate testimony about Spotsylvania is in J. William Jones and others,
eds., Southern Historical Society Papers, 52 vols. ( 1876- 1959; reprint, with 3-vol. index, Wil-
mington, N.C.: Broadfoot, 1990-92); Confederate Veteran, 40 vols. ( 1893- 1932; reprint, with
3-vol. index, Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot, 1984-86), and Walter Clark, ed., Histories of
the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War 1861-'65, 5 vols.
( Raleigh: E. M. Uzzell, Printer and Binder, 1901). For comparable Union material, readers
should consult the Papers of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States,
66 vols. and 3-vol. index ( Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot, 1991-96). Read before the state
commanderies of the MOLLUS, many of these papers shed light on Spotsylvania. Addi-
tional useful testimony from former Federals and Confederates is in vol. 4 of Papers of the
Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, 14 vols. ( 1895- 1918; reprint in 15 vols. with a gen-
eral index, Wilmington, N.C.: Broadfoot, 1989-90), and vol. 4 of Battles and Leaders of the
Civil War, ed. Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, 4 vols. ( New York:
Century, 1887).

The best scholarly treatments of Spotsylvania are William D. Matter If It Takes All Sum-
mer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), which
is especially thorough on the Federal side, and Gordon C. Rhea The Battles for Spotsylvania
Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern: May 7-12, 1864 ( Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1997), which covers the period May 7-12 and accords approximately equal
attention to Confederates and Federals. A projected second volume will extend Rhea's treat-
ment through the end of the campaign. A pair of more general titles containing long sec-
tions on Spotsylvania are Noah Andre Trudeau's unannotated but impressively researched
Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May-June 1864 ( Boston: Little, Brown,
1989) and Clifford Dowdey compellingly written and unabashedly pro-Confederate Lee'sLast Campaign: The Story of Lee and His Men against Grant--1864

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