Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864

Gordon Rhea has written a series of four books, providing a chronicle of the bloody fighting in 1864 as Ulysses Grant headed south and Robert E. Lee tried to prevent him from success. From the Wilderness to Spotsylvania Court House to the North Anna River to Cold Harbor. These four books take us through this sanguinary period, day by day. There is no obvious end of one battle and start of the next. It was a continuing slugging match between Confederate and Union forces. This book begins with Grant pulling away from the trap that Lee had set for him at the North Anna River. The moves in the chess match between Grant and Lee featured both misreading the other. Each missed opportunities to maul the other. Grant cleverly sidestepped Lee from the North Anna line, but did not follow up the march that he had gained on Lee. Each side moved in response to what they thought the other was doing, and did a slow dance of maneuver toward Cold Harbor. Major cavalry fighting broke out (e.g., Haw's Shop). Both sides saw some problems with generalship at Corps level (Early's hotheadedness led to some foolish attacks on Union positions; Burnside continued his blundering; Warren dithered; Anderson was at the very limit of his competence). The bleeding of Confederate generals slowly reduced the effectiveness of the Army of Northern Virginia, and Lee had to assume more direct control. Finally, the two armies fought it out at Cold Harbor, with the Union forces being driven back with many casualties. And here is where Rhea's book is distinctive. He argues that Cold Harbor was not nearly as disastrous to Grant's forces as often thought. Indeed, as a percentage of forces lost to casualties, the Confederate Army was in worse shop after Cold Harbor than Union forces (that is, they had lost more troops percentagewise than Northern forces). Grant could replenish his forces; Lee had a much more difficult time. At the end of the slugging matches from The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, Grant pondered his next move. And that's how the book ends. This is well written. Many maps help the reader visualize the movements of the two armies. The order of battle at the end shows the organization of each army, down to brigade and regimental levels. All in all, a worthy addition to the library of students of the Civil War.

The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864 Product Details * Hardcover: 520 pages * Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (July 1994) * Language: English * ISBN: 0807118737 The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7-12, 1864 Product Details * Hardcover: 483 pages * Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (May 1997) * Language: English * ISBN: 0807121363 To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13-25, 1864 Product Details * Hardcover: 505 pages * Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (May 2000) * Language: English * ISBN: 0807125350 Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864 Product Details * Hardcover: 552 pages * Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (September 2002) * Language: English * ISBN: 0807128031 I am reviewing the four books a single series although each book is a full stand-alone history. This is a highly detailed military history of Grant's Overland Campaign of 1864. Two of the best generals commanding two of the best armies, in American history, decide the Civil war in the East. Gordon Rhea gives this month the detailed attention it requires and had never received. The 2,000 pages allows for the full story of the campaign, the personalities, failures and success. The first book covers the major battle of The Wilderness an area Grant wished to clear and Lee hoped to trap him in as he had Hooker in 1863. Through a series of Union miscalculations and command problems, Lee manages to get in Grant's way. What follows is a confused bloody two-day battle that has been termed "Bush whacking on a grand scale". An excellent series of maps, help the reader stay abreast of the battle and understand the confusion of both sides. Lee loses Longstreet and starts to make the hard decisions about personnel that he has avoided since 1862. Grant while testing his relationship with Meade and Burnside, is trying to learn the AOP's generals too. This process dominates the four books as repeatedly Grant is forced to deal with the problems this creates and Lee takes steps that were unthinkable in 1863. The second book moves the battle from The Wilderness south to Spotsylvania and Yellow Tavern. Grant refuses to "play the game" and retreat behind the Rappahannock but pushes past Lee and continues south. What follows is a race from defensive point to defensive point, which the AOP concedes to the AoNV. Union commanders hesitate at critical moments while the AoNV reinforces the objective. This allows Lee to stay up or ahead producing one of the bloodiest battles in our history at Spotsylvania. In addition, this book covers the critical cavalry operations, Grant's reasoning, and the price paid in taking Sheridan away from Meade. J.E.B. Stuart's death, is well covered. Both in terms of what it means to the AoNV, to Lee and to the Confederacy. After one of the hardest weeks in their history, the two exhausted bloodied armies eye each other over their entrenc

Mr. Rhea has provided a clear, lucid account of that portion of the Overland Campaign from the North Anna River to Grant's decision to invest Petersberg instead of Richmond. Although somewhat over generous in presenting minor details concerning the movements of the Armies and details of the various assaults, his narrative is fairly easy to follow and to comprehend. I especially appreciated the numerous, detailed maps which did not overlook showing locations whose place names appeared in the text.

Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee May 26 - June 3, 1864 written by Gordon C. Rhea is a well-researched and written account of what really happened in this part of the Overland Campaign as for the first time Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee go head to head with their respective armies.Rhea gives the reader a surprising new interpretation of the famous battle the left 7,000 Union casualties and only 1,500 for Confederates. Contrary to the image urged by Grant's detractors, the general's campaign agaisst Lee reveals a warrioe every bit as talented as his famous Confederate counterpart.Grnt's and Lee's battles spawned persistent legends almost as farfetched as the parodies of the generals themselves. This book puts aside the rumors and deals with the factual accout of the battles of Cold Harbor.The Cold Harbor in these pages differs sharply from the Cold Harbor of popular lore. Grant is not an unthinking automaton shoveling bodies into the maw of Lee's earthworks. And Lee does not fight a perfect battle. Grant begins the campaign by executing one of his best moves, pulling his army across the North Anna and stealing a march on Lee. Discovering Grant's deception, Lee takes up a strong defensive line along the Totopotomoy Creek, countering the Union ploy. Grant send out feelers, and Lee responds, sparking battles across woods and fields northeast of Richmond. By accident rather than by design, the military center of gravity shifts to an obscure Virginia crossroads called Old Cold Harbor. Lee's line seems stretched thin. The rebel army, its back to a river and on its last legs by Grant's reconing, dediantly faces the Federals. Grant sense a chance, a long shot perhaps, to end the war and orders an army-wide assault.This is, in a nutshell, what happens, but the narrative is about Grant's Cold Harbor offensive and the events leading up to the major attack on June 3, 1864. It is a campaign study about commanders and armies. The cavalry battles at Haw's Shop, Metadequin Creek, Hanover Court House, and Ashland, the infantry fights at Totopotomoy Creek and Bethesda Church, and even the big assults of June 1 and 3 at Cold Harbor are all in here as we read on in the book.This is the fourth book in the author's Overland Series and the first that we see Grant pitted with his counter part Lee making for a throughly researched and dramatic tale. Every imaginable primary sourse has been used making the strategies, mistakes, gmbles, and problems with subordinates all come to life... giving the reader a presence. This volume is worthy of a place on your library shelf for the American Civil War.

I suppose that the most fitting summation of the merits of Gordon Rhea's "Cold Harbor" that I can give would be to simply state that it fully meets the standards established by its predecessors. Rhea has already published three outstanding volumes about the 1864 Overland Campaign waged between Grant and Lee. The present volume wholly lives up to the promise of those earlier books. Despite the complexity of the events described, Rhea's narrative is clear and compelling, and I have gained an understanding of the what's and why's of the Cold Harbor battle that far surpasses anything before.Rhea challenges several popular misconceptions about the battle, especially regarding the famous, ill-fated grand attack of June 3rd. Although in recent years understanding has grown amongst specialist military historians that the image of a hugely costly and essentially unprecedented sacrifice of attacking troops was much more a product of myth rather than fact (Rhea concludes that Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg produced substantially more casualties than the ill-conceived Cold Harbor June 3rd assault), Rhea's book marks the first full use of that understanding in a major narrative history devoted to the battle.Rhea's evaluation of the merits and weaknesses of the contending generals is balanced. Although Grant wins praise for his flexibility in seeking solutions on a strategic level through maneuver instead of simple plow-ahead fighting, Rhea sharply criticizes Grant (and Meade and their chief subordinates) for a failure to establish even the rudiments of tactical control, resulting in innumerable lost opportunities and pointless casualties. And while Lee is given very high marks for his skill in crafting superlative defenses, Rhea also points out that frequently Lee misread the situation, increasing his army's vulnerability at key moments. The description of the combat, ranging from the initial cavalry probes to the full-scale assaults upon entrenched lines as the battle moved to its climax, is extremely well done, doing full justice to the men of both armies. As Rhea amply demonstrates, courage and skill did not wear only one color uniform.Taken as a single work, Rhea's history of the Overland Campaign should rank high on anyone's list of outstanding achievements in the military history of the American Civil War. Balancing a broad scope with fine detail, this whole series of books proves Rhea understands that first-rate narrative history depends on the equal success of both those words: narrative and history.I look forward to the next volume in this outstanding history, which will bring Grant's army across the James River to the defenses of Petersburg.