A Campaign of Giants--The Battle for Petersburg

Volume 1: From the Crossing of the James to the Crater

A. Wilson Greene

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781469688367
  9781469638577
• eBook ISBN:
  9781469638584
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War’s longest and among its most complex. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee squared off for more than nine months in their struggle for Petersburg, the key to the Confederate capital at Richmond. Featuring some of the war’s most notorious battles, the campaign played out against a backdrop of political drama and crucial fighting elsewhere, with massive costs for soldiers and civilians alike. After failing to bull his way into Petersburg, Grant concentrated on isolating the city from its communications with the rest of the surviving Confederacy, stretching Lee’s defenses to the breaking point. When Lee’s desperate breakout attempt failed in March 1865, Grant launched his final offensives that forced the Confederates to abandon the city on April 2, 1865. A week later, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House.

Here A. Wilson Greene opens his sweeping new three-volume history of the Petersburg Campaign, taking readers from Grant’s crossing of the James in mid-June 1864 to the fateful Battle of the Crater on July 30. Full of fresh insights drawn from military, political, and social history, A Campaign of Giants is destined to be the definitive account of the campaign. With new perspectives on operational and tactical choices by commanders, the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, and the significant role of the United States Colored Troops in the fighting, this book offers essential reading for all those interested in the history of the Civil War.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Maps
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1. War at Our Own Doors
• 2. Our Hearts Were Filled with New Hope: Movement to Combat
• 3. My Best Achievement: June 15, 1864
• 4. More Hard Fighting and Many More Lives Must Be Lost: June 16–17, 1864
• 5. We Have Done All That It Is Possible for Men to Do and Must Be Resigned to the Result: June 18, 1864
• 6. Our Work Here Progresses Slowly: Grant’s Second Offensive
• 7. We Were Fortunate to Get Back at All: From White House Landing to First Reams’ Station
• 8. The Most Disagreeable Human Habitation Left upon This Sin-Stricken Earth: Life in Petersburg, Summer 1864
• 9. Strangled in Dust and Scorched in the Sun: Army Operations, Late June to Mid-July
• 10. I Have Accomplished One of the Great Things of This War: Construction of the Mine and First Deep Bottom
• 11. This Day Was the Jubilee of Fiends in Human Shape, and without Souls: The Union Attacks on July 30
• 12. A Perfect Hell of Blood: The Confederates Regain the Crater
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index