Research Catalog

Title

Bloody spring : forty days that sealed the Confederacy's fate / Joseph Wheelan.

Author

Wheelan, Joseph

Publication

Boston, MA : Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xix, 411 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

In the spring of 1864, Virginia remained unbroken, its armies having repelled Northern armies for more than two years. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had defeated the campaigns of four Union generals, and Lee's veterans were confident they could crush the Union offensive this spring, too. But their adversary in 1864 was a different kind of Union commander-Ulysses S. Grant. The new Union general-in-chief had never lost a major battle while leading armies in the West. A quiet, rumpled man of simple tastes and a bulldog's determination, Grant would lead the Army of the Potomac in its quest to destroy Lee's army. During six weeks in May and June 1864, Grant's army campaigned as no Union army ever had. During nearly continual combat operations, the Army of the Potomac battered its way through Virginia, skirting Richmond and crossing the James River on one of the longest pontoon bridges ever built. No campaign in North American history was as bloody as the Overland Campaign. When it ended outside Petersburg, more than 100,000 men had been killed, wounded, or captured on battlefields in the Wilderness, near Spotsylvania Court House, and at Cold Harbor. Although Grant's casualties were nearly twice Lee's, the Union could replace its losses. The Confederacy could not.

Subject

• Overland Campaign (Virginia : 1864)
• 1964
• Overland Campaign, Va., 1864
• Virginia

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-389) and index.

Contents

Spring 1864 -- Two bloody roads: the Wilderness -- The red hour: Spotsylvania Court House -- The battle that never happened: the North Anna -- "Not war but murder": Cold Harbor -- Race to stalemate: the James River -- Epilogue: the beginning of the end.

ISBN

• 9780306822063
• 0306822067
• 9780306823756 (paperback)
• 0306823756 (paperback)
• 9780306822070 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

• 2013048710
• 40023551590

OCLC

• ocn853310533
• SCSB-14065389

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library