The Wilderness to Cold Harbor

[crowley_greene]

As I see it, 1863 was just another year of combat . . . (This quote copied and pasted from the thread "Could It Really Have Ended with Gettysburg?")

As I have continued to study the history of the AoP recounted in Jeffrey Wert's The Sword of Lincoln, I have come to have more of an appreciation for Kevin O'Beirne's comment that I took from the other thread. While Gettysburg was indeed an important and hard-fought battle, the desperation of the Gettysburg fighting seems to really pale in what took place as Grant moved from The Wilderness to Cold Harbor in 1864 -- where the men of both the ANV and AoP fought continuously over weeks "like fiends" by one account. Of course, I feel like that owes in large part to a relentless Grant arriving on the scene as general-in-chief.

I'm interested in learning more about that particular part of the 1864 campaign -- The Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Yellow Tavern, Cold Harbor (I know I didn't get them all in). Can anyone suggest good books that treat that part of 1864 in detail? Well, besides Shelby Foote's volumes.

Also, did the "trench warfare" of places like Vicksburg and Petersburg mark an innovation on a world scale (like would be seen in WWI)?

Murray Therrell

[Memphis]

Gordon Rhea's series of books covering the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the Overland Campaign in general are excellent and have been in print long enough to show up in good supply on the used book market.

[reb4lee]

Gordon Rhea's series of books covering the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the Overland Campaign in general are excellent and have been in print long enough to show up in good supply on the used book market.

I agree. I have his Wilderness book and it is great.

[Cannoneer]

On the subject of the AoP and the battles from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, you might want to add Canister and Grape. Just to get the Artillery point of view...

Now back to your regular programing..

[tompritchett]

Also, did the "trench warfare" of places like Vicksburg and Petersburg mark an innovation on a world scale (like would be seen in WWI)?

Actually the Crimean War (1853 – 1856) also saw the use of modern trench warfare such as was used at places such as Vicksburg and Petersburg as well as the use of telegraphs in military actions.

[Kevin O'Beirne]

The Overland and Petersburg Campaigns are my "favorite" aspects of the Civil War.

I'm interested in learning more about that particular part of the 1864 campaign -- The Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Yellow Tavern, Cold Harbor (I know I didn't get them all in).

The were actions at the Wilderness (various locations), Todd's Tavern, Spotsylvania Courthouse (including Laurel Hill on May 8 and May 10, Po River on May 10, the Mule Shoe on May 12, Grant's attempted turning movement to the east on May 13-15 that did not result in any major battles but a great lost opportunity for the Yanks, the second assault through the Mule Shoe on Ewell's New Line on May 18, and Harris Farm (Ewell vs. the heavy artillery) on May 19), then North Anna River (fighting at various locations, May 23-25), Totopotomoy Creek (May 26-31), Cold Harbor (major actions on June 1 and June 3), not to mention the major cavalry actions at Yellow Tavern in mid-May, Meadow Bridge (a couple days after Yellow Tavern), Haw's Shop (near Cold Harbor, May 31), Trevillian Station (mid-June), and probably others. After "resting" a bit at Cold Harbor, the two armies moved to Petersburg for four more days of intensive fighting on June 15-18, followed by June 19-20 "off", and then two more days of heavy fighting in the battle of Jerusalem Plank Road. From May 4, when the two armies left their winter camps, until June 21, there was only one day (June 15) when the two armies were out of contact with each other--and that day was the day that Grant "stole a march" on Lee and left Lee guessing where the Yanks were, as the Yanks marched toward the James River.

That list is off the top of my head, but I hope it serves to give a quick overview of the amazing number of intense fights that happened during this time, with about 100,000 casualties between the two sides. Sixty percent of the men who started the campaign became casualties during it. The heaviest losses on both sides were at the Wlderness and Spotsylvania, but we shold not overlook actions like the North Anna--in part because 3,000 men fell there too, but also because what happened in these smaller actions, particularly the North Anna River phase of the campaign--strongly influenced how the larger battles occured.

Can anyone suggest good books that treat that part of 1864 in detail? Well, besides Shelby Foote's volumes.

Shelby Foote gives a good, brief overview, but there are lots of "more complete" analyses of this amazing and somewhat overlooked campaign. First off, for a basic introduction to it, I suggest the one-volume book by Noah Andre Trudeau titled, "Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May-June 1864". This may be the best, single-volume study of the campaign as a whole, and also has tha allure of leading one into Trudeau's single-volume study of the Petersburg campaign, "The Last Citadel" which has a few flaws but is a nice overview of the nine months at Petersburg; also, the first 150 pages of Trudeau's book, "Out of the Storm: The End of the Civil War, April-June 1865" continues the story of Grant and Lee through the Appomattox campaign.

However, the best narrative and analysis of the Overland Campaign as a whole is surely Gordon Rhea's amazing works,

The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864
The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, May 7-12, 1864
To the North Anna River, May 13-25, 1864
The Battle of Cold Harbor, May 26-June 3, 1864

These books form a single, continuous narrative that represents the best scholarship on the campaign as a whole. Rhea's writing style is excellent and many parts of these books read like a novel.

Rhea also has another book about part of the fighting at Spotsylvania's bloody angle called, "Carrying the Flag".

When I met him in 1999 and in subsequent telephone conversations through 2002, Mr. Rhea told me that his intention was to write a total of five books to chronicle the struggle of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia across the James through the initial assaults on Petersburg. It's been four or even five years since his Cold Harbor book came out, and so far I haven't seen or heard about the fifth book yet.

There's other, very good books that cover parts of this campaign. In particular, until Rhea's books came out, the most authoritative work on the Spotylvania battles was William Matter's "If It Takes All Summer: The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House" (published in 1987 or so). Recent years have seen the publication of several books on Cold Harbor, some of which are trash as I view it.

Also, did the "trench warfare" of places like Vicksburg and Petersburg mark an innovation on a world scale (like would be seen in WWI)?

Not really. Armies used earthworks in static situations back through at least Julius Caesar's day. Visit the Saratoga battlefield in upstate New York and you'll see loads of redoubts and earthworks. Earthworks were used in the Civil War in many battles prior to the Overland Campaign. What made the Overland Campaign (and Atlanta Campaign, which occured simultaneously) remarkable was they were supposedly the first time the opposing armies were SO given to entrenching at virtually every stop. Of course, Halleck's monotonous advance on Corinth MS in May 1862 had the Feds entrenching every day, and certainly the earthworks in even Virginia in the autumn campaigns of 1863 were formidible (Rappahannock Station, Kelly's Ford and Mine Run), but it was the spring 1864 campaigns where huge armies used earthworks as a fact of everyday life, and when assaulting them got to be widely known as such an incredibly costly enterprise.

[johnduffer]

"Actually the Crimean War (1853 – 1856) also saw the use of modern trench warfare such as was used at places such as Vicksburg and Petersburg as well as the use of telegraphs in military actions"


Not to mention Wellington in Spain and Portugel, or the Romans every time they camped. Nosworthty busts this "trenches were invented in the American Civil War" pretty well in BLOODY CRUCIBLE OF COURAGE.

John Duffer

[Kevin O'Beirne]

Actually the Crimean War (1853 – 1856) also saw the use of modern trench warfare such as was used at places such as Vicksburg and Petersburg as well as the use of telegraphs in military actions.

True, and going back to the Amercan Revolution (particularly at Saratoga and Yorktown) and many others as well. Forifications are common to human warfare to probably back to just after Cane killed Abel.

In the Civil War, and in the Crimea just seven years earlier, it was typical for opposing forces that faced each other for any extended period of time to dig in. Thus, there were Confederate earthworks near Manassas in the winter of 1861-1862, both Washington DC and Richmond were extremely heavily fortified, and certainly the Civil War's seiges and siege-like situations, such as Lexington, Fort Donelson, Suffolk, Vicksburg, Petersburg, and others saw the excavation of extensive earthworks. The longer an army sat, the more it dug.

That said, what made campaigns like Corinth, the Overland Campaign, and the Atlanta Campaign remarkable regarding earthworks was that they were campaigns of maneuver that STILL saw the construction of extensive earthworks.

[Jim Mayo]

A good book which will put a little different light on the campaign is Willaim Frassanito's "Grant and Lee, The Virginia Campaigns 1864-1865". As you may know, Frassanito takes period photographs of a location, gives a general overview of what happened there and tries to take a modern picture of the same location. There were a lot of period photos taken during this campaign and the book is quite interesting. It also covers the photos taken at Petersburg.

[crowley_greene]

. . . what made campaigns like Corinth, the Overland Campaign, and the Atlanta Campaign remarkable regarding earthworks was that they were campaigns of maneuver that STILL saw the construction of extensive earthworks.

Yes, that's the reason I wondered if the American Civil War brought about innovations in trench warfare that had not been seen in examples dating back to ancient times (as a more recent example, I have visited the trenches of Yorktown, Washington facing off with Cornwallis). It seems like the WWI trenches in Europe might have followed the "maneuvering" techniques such as at Petersburg and . . . okay, Corinth. Maybe Vicksburg isn't as good an example -- where were the Confederates going to maneuver to?

Murray Therrell