Meade: The Price of Command, 1863–1865 (Civil War Soldiers and Strategies) - Hardcover

Selby, John G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1606353489 ISBN 13: 9781606353486

Publisher: The Kent State University Press, 2018

Synopsis

George Gordon Meade has not been treated kindly by history. Victorious at Gettysburg, the biggest battle of the American Civil War, Meade was the longest-serving commander of the Army of the Potomac, leading his army through the brutal Overland Campaign and on to the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. Serving alongside his new superior, Ulysses S. Grant, in the last year of the war, his role has been overshadowed by the popular Grant. This first full-length study of Meade’s two-year tenure as commander of the Army of the Potomac brings him out of Grant’s shadow and into focus as one of the top three Union generals of the war.

John G. Selby portrays a general bestride a large army he could manage well and a treacherous political environment he neither fully understood nor cared to engage. Meade’s time as commander began on a high note with the victory at Gettysburg, but when he failed to fight Lee’s retreating army that July and into the fall of 1863, the political knives came out. Meade spent the winter of 1863–64 struggling to retain his job while the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War sought to have him dismissed. Meade offered to resign, but Grant told him to keep his job. Together, they managed the Overland Campaign and the initial attacks on Petersburg and Richmond in 1864.

By basing his study on the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, original Meade letters, and the letters, diaries, journals, and reminiscences of contemporaries, Selby demonstrates that Meade was a much more active, thoughtful, and enterprising commander than has been assumed. This sensitive and reflective man accepted a position that was as political as it was military, despite knowing that the political dimensions of the job might ultimately destroy what he valued the most, his reputation.

About this title

About the Author

John G. Selby is professor of history at Roanoke College and the former holder of the John R. Turbyfill Chair in History. A Civil War scholar, Selby wrote Virginians at War: The Civil War Experiences of Seven Young Confederates and coedited Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard and His Fellow Veterans.

From the Back Cover

"John G. Selby ably chronicles the 'goggle-eyed' Pennsylvanian's tenure in command of the Army of the Potomac and demonstrates that Meade was far more than just the beneficiary of Confederate mistakes at Gettysburg."

Ethan S. Rafuse, author of Robert E. Lee and the Fall of the Confederacy, 1863-1865

"John Selby offers a thorough and fascinating account of George G. Meade's generalship during the crucial years in which he served as the head of the Army of the Potomac. . . . Selby's work helps us to understand this often overlooked commander and sheds new light on Meade's complicated relationship with his general-in-chief."

Andre M. Fleche, author of The Revolution of 1861: The American Civil War in the Age of Nationalist Conflict

"In Meade: The Price of Command, John Selby works to restore credit where it is due, giving Meade, finally, a fair hearing for his hard work on the battlefields of Virginia. Meade's aide Theodore Lyman asked only that his general receive his full share of honor. John Selby goes far in redressing the imbalance."

David M. Lowe, editor of Meade's Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman

Edition details

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1606353489
• ISBN 13: 9781606353486
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432