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The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864
written by Gordon C. Rhea
Studio : Louisiana State University Press
by Louisiana State University Press
Publisher : Louisiana State University Press
Released : 1994-07
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780807118733
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 30 reviews)
List Price : $36.95
Our Price : $9.55
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Product Description |
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Fought in a tangled forest fringing the south bank of the Rapidan River, the Battle of the Wilderness marked the initial engagement in the climactic months of the Civil War in Virginia, and the first encounter between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. In an exciting narrative, Gordon c. Rhea provides the consummate recounting of that conflict of May 5 and 6, 1864, which ended with high casualties on both sides but no clear victor. With its balanced analysis of events and people, command structures and strategies, The Battle of the Wilderness is operational history as it should be written. |
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The gold standard on the Overland Campaign |
This series is indeed the gold standard for Civil War writing. Easy to read despite the preponderance of detail, it holds your attention from the minute Grant enters the Wilderness until the last shot at Cold Harbor. Instead of being overwhelmed by the length of the series, I found it came to an end much too soon.
Time after time, Rhea bursts the myths and misconceptions that have evolved over the last 100+ years about the Civil War. I cannot wait for future installments.
The only problem is that after you have read Rhea, too many other authors of history simply do not measure up. I cannot recommend this series enough. |
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Well done |
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This book is a very detailed look on the tactical level at the May 1864 battle of the Wilderness. It is a good read, well-researched, and a number of excellent maps help the reader to make sense of this confusing battle. I recommend it to be sure. However, it could have been a five-star book with a few changes, which i am surprised LSU Press did not also suggest. First, this is almost a total tactical military study, and does not do a great job putting into a political/strategic perspective. We get very little of Lincoln's perspective/role, esp. his relationship with Meade, and to some extent Grant. In other words, Rhea concentrates so much on the regimental, brigade, division, and corps level, that he tends to ignore the larger canvass. Second, we only see Grant and Meade a little, which is surprising. I came away from reading the book thinking that Grant didn't do much here except whittle and smoke, and Meade could have been fleshed out more too. I found the same thing with Rhea's treatment of CSA Gen. A P Hill, who gets much less attention than Ewell or Longstreet. |
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Consider these 4 volumes as one seamless narrative |
Consider this entry as a review of Gordon C. Rhea's four books (The Battle of the Wilderness, The Battle for Spotsylvania and the Road to Yellow Tavern, To the North Anna River, Cold Harbor) as a single narrative.
This is a prodigious work. As the other reviewers point out each book is a stand alone volume but the four books together form a seamless narrative of the entire Overland Campaign that is indispensable to the comprehension of any of its parts.
The first accomplishment of Mr. Rhea's work is to establish a timeline of the Campaign's events from the crossing of the Rappahannock at daylight of May 4, 1864 to the cessation of hostilities at Cold Harbor on June 3, 1864. In between the narrative never leaves the action for more than 12 hours and at times the detail is hour-to-hour. The cross-referencing must have required a warehouse of file cabinets. Crucial events are described with contemporary accounts (in 1865 that meant official reports and newspaper accounts), letters home to friends and loved ones, and post-war accounts from biographies to unpublished diaries and compilations like university libraries and military societies. When all of these sources are culled through for pertinent information and focused on any single event the effect can be tremendous.
The morning after the Battle of the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania, for instance, the collections of the participants from the Union side - since they were the ones in possession of the combat arena - reveal their mood. The reports, letters and recollections combine to give the reader the dread feeling of resignation that descended on the men who policed the battlefield. One soldier told years later how, after separating bodies and digging graves, he found an isolated spot in the woods and broke into tears from the experience. I found it hard to see the words through my own tears due to the effect of the narrative.
Mr. Rhea's technique thus reveals the Campaign in its entirety, leaving nothing for mere filler. The marches are every bit as exciting as the battles as both armies race to the next objective. The emotional ups and downs are palpable to the reader as the collected relevant texts spanning decades are focused in on any single event and can almost transport the reader though time to be a participant in history.
The next accomplishment, at least to this reader, is what is called the study in command. The difference between the way the two armies functioned comes clear in these books and the way the collective character of the opposing forces are revealed as expressed by the actions of the soldiers is another by-product of the chronicles. The dysfunctional nature of the Union command structure affects the sluggish, brutish nature of the way in which commands are followed all the way down to the lowest private, whereas in the Confederate ranks things sometimes happen without orders because everyone knew what was required of them. The fighting at the Mule Shoe again, for instance, is a good example. Mr. Rhea vividly describes the situation after the Union breakthrough where a few Confederate brigades fought three Union Corps to a standstill due mainly to the attitudes of the participants. Southern companies commanded by sergeants and equipped with inferior equipment had greater impact than leaderless Northern brigades unable to exploit the breakthrough because there was no one present willing or knowledgeable enough to take responsibility.
Other reviewers have described how Mr. Rhea does not shrink from objectively evaluating General Lee's mistakes as well as his virtues. Contrast that to the way he elevates General Grant from any "butcher" characterization to reveal the triumph of his strategic vision even while detailing his tactical blunders. The reputations of the two commanders thus gravitate more toward each other, more the same than opposite in capabilities, than in other studies.
One other contribution I can make that I do not see talked about in the other reviews is to mention the historical "scoops" author Gordon C. Rhea presents for the record. There are a number of them starting with General A.P Hill's performance in the Wilderness to General Hancock's performance, well, anywhere after the Wilderness - you'll have to read the books to find out what they all are - to the big finale, his amazing revelation about the Battle of Cold Harbor. That last is a historical revision that will have a loud echo in any subsequent history of the Cold Harbor engagement.
And finally, Mr. Rhea left a glaring omission right at the end. As knowledgeable Civil War readers will attest there was a final controversy concerning the Cold Harbor engagement involving the way the wounded were treated (or, rather, not treated) after the battle and a testy exchange of correspondence between Grant and Lee about who bore the responsibility for a cease-fire. I was looking forward to more of Mr. Rhea's insightful analysis of that final echo of the Overland Campaign but he did not even mention it. It was the only disappointing thing about the entire series; otherwise, these four books are, in my opinion, the definitive treatment of the Overland Campaign. |
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Part 1 of a masterful series |
The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864
By Gordon C Rhea
This is volume one of Gordon Rhea's masterful four volume study of the Overland Campaign.
The Wilderness Campaign is particularly worth studying for two reasons. First, it is one of the most complex and frustrating battles ever fought on American soil. Second, it is the first encounter between Grant and Lee.
Rhea adeptly outlines Grant and Lee's eagerness to impose their will on the other. Each was coming from a long series of victories (Grant in the West and Lee in the East) and each was confident they could win.
What is amazing to a student of their generalship from a more distant viewpoint is how often both Grant and Lee were uninformed, misinformed, confused, and out of touch with events.
The Wilderness was an area of overgrown second growth forest so dense and so impossible to travel outside the limited road network that it turned into a constant blind fight of small units doing their best in isolation and with limited leadership from above.
Both Grant and Lee were confident they could find a way around their opponents flank and both were willing to run tactical defeat in specific areas in order to push and probe until they found a way to break through.
In the end, the Army of Northern Virginia held on by a very narrow margin but in the process took so many casualties that its ability to maneuver and fight in the open was almost broken.
Lee had blocked Grant for the moment but only by engaging in the kind of attrition which would ultimately guarantee a northern victory.
Rhea's careful outlining of the hour by hour intensity is well worth studying. |
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Battle of the Wilderness by Gordon Rhea |
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A most definitive work! This is the best book I've read documenting this complex and frustrating battle during Grant's spring offensive and his first encounter with Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Few have been able to help the reader visualize and understand just how difficult it was to fight a battle in a virtually inpenetrable forest. The author does an amazing job in this respect. The only battle field that presented a comparatively difficult experience was Chickamauga. The book also does a good job with focusing on the fact that Grant was, for the most part, just an observer in The Wilderness as he allowed General Meade to manage the command center during most of the entirety. It was not Grant's (nor Meade's) finest hour, to be sure. If you can only have one book about this battle on your shelf, this should be it. |
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