Not War but Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 - Hardcover

Furgurson, Ernest B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679455175 ISBN 13: 9780679455172

Publisher: Knopf, 2000

Synopsis

On the morning of Friday, June 3, 1864, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and George G. Meade brought their overland campaign against Richmond to its climax in an all-out assault on Robert E. Lee's entrenched Rebels at Cold Harbor, less than ten miles outside the Confederate capital. The result was outright slaughter--Grant's worst defeat, and Lee's last great victory. Though Grant tried afterward to forget the battle, and historians have often misunderstood its importance, Cold Harbor remains what Bruce Catton called "one of the hard and terrible names of the Civil War, perhaps the most terrible one of all."

Now Ernest Furgurson, an eloquent narrator and analyst of the war, tells the harrowing story of this pivotal conflict. Like his earlier account of the Battle of Chancellorsville, his latest work is rich in detail and revealing anecdotes: Federal generals consume a champagne lunch while more than a thousand of their wounded lie untended on the field. The Confederate Congress votes itself a 100 percent pay raise while bread prices skyrocket in the South. An angry Union surgeon saws off the leg of a malingerer. Yankee and Rebel soldiers, slipping between the lines after dark to rescue the wounded, find themselves in the same hole and negotiate a private truce.

Furgurson explores the minds of both privates and commanders, showing how friction between the overconfident Grant and the irascible Meade proved disastrous; how Lee, with fewer than half as many troops as Meade, repeatedly outmaneuvered Union forces; and how Northern election-year politics influenced Grant's strategy, pressing him to try to win the war with one final head-on attack.

Cold Harbor was a watershed moment of the Civil War. After Grant's defeat, the struggle dragged on; the war of maneuver became a war of siege, and stand-up attack gave way to trench warfare--tactics that would become familiar in France half a century later. Above all, Cold Harbor was the most uselessly bloody, one-sided battle of the war, whose terrible human cost is captured in one chilling diary entry, scrawled by a mortally wounded soldier: "June 3, Cold Harbor. I was killed."

About this title

From the Publisher

"Fergurson's engagement with the people he writes about comes through in every line, making one of the most wrenching incidents of the war grimly immediate.... Direct and compelling...even those without a previous interest in the Civil War are sure to be drawn in."
-- Publishers Weekly

"Another first-class Civil War history from Furgurson, this one a blow-by-blow analysis of a gory, rarely studied battle that he believes was pivotal in determining the future strategies of Grant and Lee . . . A horrific, neglected Civil War battle lives again in a demanding, nonstop assault of facts, anecdotes, vain heroics, and wasted lives."
-- Kirkus Reviews

"Furgurson adds to his record of two first-rate Civil War histories, Chancellorsville 1863 and Ashes of Glory . . . [ Not War But Murder ] regularly departs from minutiae to provide an olympian view of Cold Harbor's prelude, action, and aftermath . . . [Furgurson's] clarity and organization solidify his place as one of today's better popular Civil War writers."
-- Booklist

"What a book -- nothing like it in Civil War literature -- so searing, so unblinkingly realistic in rendering an unforgettable portrait of this horrible battle. The resourceful research made it inevitable that, in this writer's hands, we should see Cold Harbor as no one -- especially participants -- could have seen it. Mr. Furgurson is a most important interpreter of the Civil War, and here he ignites a backfire against modern seers who would trivialize the vast, complex struggle as a mere incident in the Civil Rights movement."
-- Burke Davis, author of Gray Fox: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War

"Few places, if any, in the Civil War were more horrible than Cold Harbor, Virginia. In a narrative as compelling as the story he relates, Ernest Furgurson has written the finest account, to date, of that bloody campaign. Not War But Murder is an excellent book."
-- Jeffry D. Wert, author of A Brotherhood of Valor

"Not War But Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the monumental tragedy of the American Civil War. As Ernest B. Furgurson reveals so compellingly, modern warfare began in the muddy trenches of Northern Virginia half a century before Verdun."
-- Malcolm McConnell, author of Inside Hanoi's Secret Archives

"Ernest Furgurson's Not War But Murder is the first book-length account of the battle of Cold Harbor. Mr. Furgurson draws on impressive skills as a journalist and historian to bring the bloody tale alive. Under his pen, the relentless march of events culminating in General Grant's ill-conceived assault on June 3, 1864, against General Lee's entrenchments has the immediacy of today's news."
-- Gordon Rhea, author of The Battle in the Wilderness

"Not War But Murder is a blockbuster, equal as a campaign study to the author's acclaimed Chancellorsville 1863. It is far superior to previous books on this too often ignored campaign, particularly the June 3 charges that, in future wars, make Verdun, the Somme, Omaha Beach, and Iwo Jima synonymous with the gallantry, sacrifice, death and destruction, and horror associated with war. Furgurson ignores neither the decision makers, nor the real heroes -- the junior officers and rank and file -- as he weaves an exciting, informed and thought-provoking narrative."
-- Edwin C. Bearss, Historian Emeritus, National Park Service

From the Back Cover

“Engaging...eloquent...compelling.... Cold Harbor finally has emerged from the shadows of Civil War literature.”–Civil War Book Review

“Furgurson excels [at] individual stories of valor, horror, triumph and despair.”–The Baltimore Sun

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0679455175
• ISBN 13: 9780679455172
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328