Research Catalog

Title

The Spotsylvania campaign / edited by Gary W. Gallagher.

Publication

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Gallagher, Gary W.
• Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana (Mississippi State University. Libraries) MsSM

Description

xv, 272 p. : ill., maps; 25 cm.

Summary

Approaching topics related to Spotsylvania from a variety of perspectives, the contributors to this volume explore questions regarding high command, tactics and strategy, the impact of fighting on officers and soldiers in both armies, and the ways in which some participants chose to remember and interpret the campaign. The authors draw on previously untapped manuscript sources and reinterpret more familiar ones, sometimes focusing closely on Spotsylvania and sometimes using it as a point of departure from which to consider broader issues. Readers will find insights into the decisions and behavior of Robert E. Lee and of Federal army leaders, the fullest descriptions to date of the horrific fighting at the "Bloody Angle" on May 12 and of "Jeb" Stuart's response to Philip H. Sheridan's cavalry raid toward Richmond, a careful analysis of how constant campaigning punctuated by brutal combat affected the military efficiency of the two armies, an examination of the ways in which one New Jersey regiment's postwar recollections of Spotsylvania differed from wartime reality, and a revealing look at how Grant used his memoirs to offset Lost Cause interpretations of his actions at Spotsylvania and elsewhere in the Overland Campaign.

Series Statement

Military campaigns of the Civil War

Uniform Title

• Project Muse UPCC books
• Military campaigns of the Civil War

Subject

• 1864
• Spotsylvania Court House, Battle of, Va., 1864

Genre/Form

Military history.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

I have to make the best of what I have : Robert E. Lee at Spotsylvania / Gary W. Gallagher -- The Federal high command at Spotsylvania / William D. Matter -- The testing of a corps commander : Gouverneur Kemble Warren at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania / Gordon C. Rhea -- An insurmountable barrier between the army and ruin : the Confederate experience at Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle / Robert K. Krick -- Stuart's last ride : a Confederate view of Sheridan's raid / Robert E.L. Krick -- A hard road to travel : the impact of continuous operations on the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia in May 1864 / Carol Reardon -- We respect a good soldier, no matter what flag he fought under : the 15th New Jersey remembers Spotsylvania / Peter S. Carmichael -- Grant's second Civil War : the battle for historical memory / William A. Blair.

ISBN

080782402X (alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^97036876^

OCLC

• 37464444
• SCSB-13438001

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library