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

Rhea Esq., Gordon C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807128031 ISBN 13: 9780807128039

Publisher: LSU Press, 2002

Synopsis

In his gripping fourth volume on the spring 1864 Overland campaign -- which pitted Ulysses S. Grant against Robert E. Lee for the first time in the Civil War -- Gordon Rhea vividly re-creates the battles and maneuvers from the North Anna stalemate through the Cold Harbor offensive. Once again Rhea's tenacious research elicits stunning new facts from the records of a phase oddly ignored or mythologized by historians. The Cold Harbor of these pages differs sharply from the Cold Harbor of popular lore.
We see Grant, in one of his most brilliant moves, pull his army across the North Anna River and steal a march on Lee. In response, Lee sets up a strong defensive line along Totopotomoy Creek, and the battles spark across woods and fields northeast of Richmond. Their back to the Chickahominy River and on their last legs, the rebel troops defiantly face an army-wide assault ordered by Grant that extends over three days.
Rhea gives a surprising new interpretation of the famous battle that left seven thousand Union casualties and only fifteen hundred Confederate dead or wounded. Here, Grant is not a callous butcher, and Lee does not wage a perfect fight. Every imaginable primary source has been exhausted to unravel the strategies, mistakes, gambles, and problems with subordinates that preoccupied two exquisitely matched minds.
In Cold Harbor, Rhea separates fact from fiction in a charged, evocative narrative. He leaves readers under a moonless sky, Grant pondering the eastward course of the James River fifteen miles south of the encamped armies.

About this title

About the Author:

Gordon Rhea i s the author of three previous books, a frequent lecturer throughout the country on military history, and a practicing attorney. A winner of the Fletcher Pratt Literary Award, he lives in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, and in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, with his wife and two sons.

About this edition

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0807128031
• ISBN 13: 9780807128039
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 554