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The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5–6, 1864
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.
531 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 1994
61 people are currently reading
834 people want to read
About the author
Gordon C. Rhea
20 books55 followersMr. Rhea is a nationally acclaimed historian. He has lectured extensively on topics of military history at the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, at several National Military Parks, and at historical societies and civil war round tables across the country. He had been a member of numerous boards of directors of historical societies, magazines, and historic preservation organizations, including the Civil War Library and Museum, Philadelphia, and North and South magazine. Mr. Rhea has appeared on History Channel, A&E Channel, and Discovery Channel in programs related to American history and has written scores of articles for various scholarly and popular publications. His books, which are considered authoritative in their fields, include:
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February 6, 2026
“Eighteen sixty-four opened a season of desperation for the Confederacy and of hope for the Union cause. During the previous year, Federal armies had gained control of the Mississippi River and had consolidated their grip on Tennessee. Not only was the Confederacy now severed from its main artery but it had lost a substantial portion of its heartland as well. Only two significant Confederate military forces remained. In northern Georgia, General Joseph E. Johnston’s rebel army was locked in a standoff against Major General William T. Sherman’s tough Union veterans. And in the war’s eastern theater, [Robert E.] Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was opposed by the largest concentration of Federal military might yet assembled…”
- Gordon C. Rhea, The Battle of the Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864
General Ulysees S. Grant’s Overland Campaign in the summer of 1864 represents the bloodiest sequence in the American Civil War. Considering the staggering costs of that war, that is saying something profoundly grim. In a series of battles waged in Virginia, Grant – freshly arrived from the western theater – confronted the legendary Confederate General Robert E. Lee. By the time it ended, thousands were dead, tens of thousands were wounded, Lee was racing to save Petersburg, and the stage had been set for the final act.
Gordon C. Rhea’s The Battle of the Wilderness is a detailed, well-written look at the first encounter of the Overland Campaign. It successfully brings some nuance to a military operation that is often reduced to blundering hammer strikes wielded by “Grant the Butcher,” and offers a semblance of coherence to one of the war’s more chaotic fights.
***
The Battle of the Wilderness is actually the first in Rhea’s multivolume study of the Overland Campaign. Given that the book is 450-pages long, and that several more follow, you have a pretty good idea of the level of detail toward which Rhea is striving.
At this point, you might be wondering to yourself: is this necessary in my life? If you have to ask the question, the answer is no. This is a project meant for that breed known as American Civil War Enthusiasts™. It breaks a sprawling battle down to its most minute particles, sometimes all the way to the company level.
To that end, Rhea does not take a long time getting warmed up. The overall context in which Grant’s campaign began – the years of Union failure in the east under a litany of subpar generals; the unfinished victory at Gettysburg; and Grant’s rise to command of all the Union Armies – is only briefly sketched. Though I love a solid framework as well as the next fella, this makes sense, since if you have decided to pick this up, you probably already have a very good idea of what came before.
***
If you happen to be unfamiliar with the engagement, the Wilderness was the name given to a dense, second-growth forest in eastern Virginia. A year before Grant and Lee collided, it had been the site of the Battle of Chancellorsville, perhaps Lee’s most stunning victory. The confusion of trees and shrubs, laced with precious few roads, nullified any Union advantage in manpower. Thus, when Grant crossed the Rapidan, intending to draw Lee into open battle, he meant for the Army of the Potomac – under the direct command of George Meade – to make its way quickly through the Wilderness.
Of course, as so often happened to the snakebit Army of the Potomac – truly a mass of lions led by pugs – leadership failed the men under their command. Instead of pushing through the Wilderness quickly, the army dawdled, thereby giving Lee time to launch his much smaller forces against unsuspecting Federal soldiers.
This resulted in a vicious back-and-forth struggle that occupied the better part of two days, with each side – at one point or another – coming within a hair’s breadth of smashing victory or ignominious collapse.
***
I wrestle with how much credit – and conversely, how much blame – the top commanders of the Civil War receive. Nineteenth century battles were extremely confusing. No real-time information; no satellites; no radios to deliver orders. Thick smoke covering everything. The officers a collection of political hacks, eager amateurs, madmen, and drunks, with a few professionals thrown into the mix. However solid the plan, once the thing started in motion, the man who devised it had little control.
In the Wilderness, all the typical problems of acquiring adequate intelligence, conveying precise orders, and coordinating far flung units were magnified many times over. Much hinged on frontline initiative and old-fashioned luck.
Moving carefully from one point of the field to another, Rhea vividly describes the difficult terrain, the slowness of movement, and the tremendous challenges in simply getting a body of men down a narrow road. His efforts are helped by numerous maps that breakdown the tactical posture at various moments in time. One of Rhea’s signal achievements is in acknowledging chaos and exploring it in depth.
***
One of the many fascinating aspects of the American Civil War is the mass literacy of its soldiers. There are thousands of letters, memoirs, and manuscripts upon which to draw. For an author taking on any of the war’s infinite topics, the problem is seldom too little information, but too much.
Rhea ably incorporates first-person accounts into his own vivid descriptions in ways that are sometimes novelistic. If he is not quite the artist as Shelby Foote, he is still pretty dang good. There are a number of memorable sequences in the book, such as a Union aide between struck senseless by a severed head.
While generally presenting a story, Rhea occasionally stops to weigh the evidence, and discuss competing claims. During the postwar era, carping about the distribution of credit and blame became a cottage industry. Generals such as Gouverneur K. Warren, John Gordon, and Richard Ewell all went to their graves arguing about their performances during the Wilderness.
Rhea is helped in this regard by a decision to use footnotes rather than endnotes. The common argument against footnotes is that they clutter the page and cause a distraction. This is absolutely true. But they also allow you to immediately see the origin of a piece of evidence. Annotations further amplify the notes. Depending on how much of your life’s happiness is balanced upon knowing every scrap of information regarding the Wilderness, you can always just skip them.
***
The leaders of the American Civil War represent an eccentric cast of characters. Rhea smartly leans into this. He provides mini-bios on all the expected figures, such as Grant, Lee, James Longstreet, and Winfield Scott Hancock, but also brings life to the lesser-knowns, the officers at the brigade and regimental level who did the dirty work. Though it is harder to create complete arcs for the common soldiers – as opposed to momentary impressions – Rhea provides a good sampling of their experiences.
***
Because this is solely a battle history, none of the enduring controversies of the American Civil War appear on these pages. This allows Rhea to maintain a strict level of objectivity, where everything is judged on military – rather than moral or political – terms.
Despite being a southerner by birth – and now, oddly enough, the attorney general of the Virgin Islands – Rhea does yeoman’s work pushing back the tide of Lost Cause mythologizing, wherein the gallant and unflawed Lee lost only because Grant drowned him in a sea of senselessly shed blood.
As Rhea notes, Lee had a distinctly aggressive military philosophy, which served him well when dealing with loose-bowelled men like George McClellan. However, his willingness to launch headlong attacks – not only at the Wilderness, but at Malvern Hill and the third day of Gettysburg – caused irreplaceable losses. Meanwhile, Grant was not the drunk blunderer of pro-southern propaganda. Instead, he embodied the strategic sense that Lee lacked, as well as a disposition for maneuver, which he showed in his approach to Vicksburg. Grant’s army lost more men in total; Lee lost more on a proportional basis.
***
Following the slaughter of Union soldiers at Fredericksburg in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln mused about the “awful arithmetic” of war. In short, he observed that if Fredericksburg was refought on a weekly basis, even with madly skewed casualty figures – the Federals suffering almost 13,000; Lee just over 5,000 – the Union would prevail, while the Confederacy disintegrated. At the time, Lincoln thought he’d win the war when he found a general who understood the math.
Grant understood it. Eventually, even Lincoln would quail at the list of killed, wounded, and missing. Not Grant. With his battered army poised to retreat across the Rapidan, he instead made a cleverly concealed movement towards Spotsylvania Courthouse, in an attempt to turn Lee’s flank. If that interest you, Rhea has you covered.
- Gordon C. Rhea, The Battle of the Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864
General Ulysees S. Grant’s Overland Campaign in the summer of 1864 represents the bloodiest sequence in the American Civil War. Considering the staggering costs of that war, that is saying something profoundly grim. In a series of battles waged in Virginia, Grant – freshly arrived from the western theater – confronted the legendary Confederate General Robert E. Lee. By the time it ended, thousands were dead, tens of thousands were wounded, Lee was racing to save Petersburg, and the stage had been set for the final act.
Gordon C. Rhea’s The Battle of the Wilderness is a detailed, well-written look at the first encounter of the Overland Campaign. It successfully brings some nuance to a military operation that is often reduced to blundering hammer strikes wielded by “Grant the Butcher,” and offers a semblance of coherence to one of the war’s more chaotic fights.
***
The Battle of the Wilderness is actually the first in Rhea’s multivolume study of the Overland Campaign. Given that the book is 450-pages long, and that several more follow, you have a pretty good idea of the level of detail toward which Rhea is striving.
At this point, you might be wondering to yourself: is this necessary in my life? If you have to ask the question, the answer is no. This is a project meant for that breed known as American Civil War Enthusiasts™. It breaks a sprawling battle down to its most minute particles, sometimes all the way to the company level.
To that end, Rhea does not take a long time getting warmed up. The overall context in which Grant’s campaign began – the years of Union failure in the east under a litany of subpar generals; the unfinished victory at Gettysburg; and Grant’s rise to command of all the Union Armies – is only briefly sketched. Though I love a solid framework as well as the next fella, this makes sense, since if you have decided to pick this up, you probably already have a very good idea of what came before.
***
If you happen to be unfamiliar with the engagement, the Wilderness was the name given to a dense, second-growth forest in eastern Virginia. A year before Grant and Lee collided, it had been the site of the Battle of Chancellorsville, perhaps Lee’s most stunning victory. The confusion of trees and shrubs, laced with precious few roads, nullified any Union advantage in manpower. Thus, when Grant crossed the Rapidan, intending to draw Lee into open battle, he meant for the Army of the Potomac – under the direct command of George Meade – to make its way quickly through the Wilderness.
Of course, as so often happened to the snakebit Army of the Potomac – truly a mass of lions led by pugs – leadership failed the men under their command. Instead of pushing through the Wilderness quickly, the army dawdled, thereby giving Lee time to launch his much smaller forces against unsuspecting Federal soldiers.
This resulted in a vicious back-and-forth struggle that occupied the better part of two days, with each side – at one point or another – coming within a hair’s breadth of smashing victory or ignominious collapse.
***
I wrestle with how much credit – and conversely, how much blame – the top commanders of the Civil War receive. Nineteenth century battles were extremely confusing. No real-time information; no satellites; no radios to deliver orders. Thick smoke covering everything. The officers a collection of political hacks, eager amateurs, madmen, and drunks, with a few professionals thrown into the mix. However solid the plan, once the thing started in motion, the man who devised it had little control.
In the Wilderness, all the typical problems of acquiring adequate intelligence, conveying precise orders, and coordinating far flung units were magnified many times over. Much hinged on frontline initiative and old-fashioned luck.
Moving carefully from one point of the field to another, Rhea vividly describes the difficult terrain, the slowness of movement, and the tremendous challenges in simply getting a body of men down a narrow road. His efforts are helped by numerous maps that breakdown the tactical posture at various moments in time. One of Rhea’s signal achievements is in acknowledging chaos and exploring it in depth.
***
One of the many fascinating aspects of the American Civil War is the mass literacy of its soldiers. There are thousands of letters, memoirs, and manuscripts upon which to draw. For an author taking on any of the war’s infinite topics, the problem is seldom too little information, but too much.
Rhea ably incorporates first-person accounts into his own vivid descriptions in ways that are sometimes novelistic. If he is not quite the artist as Shelby Foote, he is still pretty dang good. There are a number of memorable sequences in the book, such as a Union aide between struck senseless by a severed head.
While generally presenting a story, Rhea occasionally stops to weigh the evidence, and discuss competing claims. During the postwar era, carping about the distribution of credit and blame became a cottage industry. Generals such as Gouverneur K. Warren, John Gordon, and Richard Ewell all went to their graves arguing about their performances during the Wilderness.
Rhea is helped in this regard by a decision to use footnotes rather than endnotes. The common argument against footnotes is that they clutter the page and cause a distraction. This is absolutely true. But they also allow you to immediately see the origin of a piece of evidence. Annotations further amplify the notes. Depending on how much of your life’s happiness is balanced upon knowing every scrap of information regarding the Wilderness, you can always just skip them.
***
The leaders of the American Civil War represent an eccentric cast of characters. Rhea smartly leans into this. He provides mini-bios on all the expected figures, such as Grant, Lee, James Longstreet, and Winfield Scott Hancock, but also brings life to the lesser-knowns, the officers at the brigade and regimental level who did the dirty work. Though it is harder to create complete arcs for the common soldiers – as opposed to momentary impressions – Rhea provides a good sampling of their experiences.
***
Because this is solely a battle history, none of the enduring controversies of the American Civil War appear on these pages. This allows Rhea to maintain a strict level of objectivity, where everything is judged on military – rather than moral or political – terms.
Despite being a southerner by birth – and now, oddly enough, the attorney general of the Virgin Islands – Rhea does yeoman’s work pushing back the tide of Lost Cause mythologizing, wherein the gallant and unflawed Lee lost only because Grant drowned him in a sea of senselessly shed blood.
As Rhea notes, Lee had a distinctly aggressive military philosophy, which served him well when dealing with loose-bowelled men like George McClellan. However, his willingness to launch headlong attacks – not only at the Wilderness, but at Malvern Hill and the third day of Gettysburg – caused irreplaceable losses. Meanwhile, Grant was not the drunk blunderer of pro-southern propaganda. Instead, he embodied the strategic sense that Lee lacked, as well as a disposition for maneuver, which he showed in his approach to Vicksburg. Grant’s army lost more men in total; Lee lost more on a proportional basis.
***
Following the slaughter of Union soldiers at Fredericksburg in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln mused about the “awful arithmetic” of war. In short, he observed that if Fredericksburg was refought on a weekly basis, even with madly skewed casualty figures – the Federals suffering almost 13,000; Lee just over 5,000 – the Union would prevail, while the Confederacy disintegrated. At the time, Lincoln thought he’d win the war when he found a general who understood the math.
Grant understood it. Eventually, even Lincoln would quail at the list of killed, wounded, and missing. Not Grant. With his battered army poised to retreat across the Rapidan, he instead made a cleverly concealed movement towards Spotsylvania Courthouse, in an attempt to turn Lee’s flank. If that interest you, Rhea has you covered.
July 3, 2009
I loved this book, it is one of the best written and researched accounts on the Battle of the Wilderness. With over 450 pages of text and 20 well presented and easy to read maps this book gives you a day to day and blow by blow account of this terrible battle. This is the definitive account of the Battle of the Wilderness and I highly recommend it to any person who loves a good book on the Civil War.
May 19, 2022
In my mind, the Battle of the Wilderness is one of the most interesting Civil War battles. It carries all the past and the promise, the battles already gone and all the battles and wars yet to come - the fading of the more brilliant tactics, the beginning of the slugfests, the inches bought in blood of Grant’s Overland campaign. The Battle of the Wilderness carries a peculiar resonance, too: these are old familiar roads, dogged by the shadow of Stonewall Jackson’s great flanking manuever at Chancellorsville, exactly one year prior - and also, perhaps, by Joe Hooker’s ignominous defeat and flight.
The Wilderness runs rife with great characters, too. Bumbling confusion and uncertainty clutters the narratives of a great many earlier battles; by the time of the Wilderness, men knew their grim trade well, from the soldiers to the generals (at least, most of them). Confusion abounds in the dense uncertainty of the Wilderness, of course - this dense, thicket-snarled tract of second-growth timber - but it is not the naive bewilderment of the Peninsula campaigns, and this makes for a grimly powerful narrative, peopled by men ironed into legend and competence: Hancock, Grant, Lee, Cutler and his Iron Brigade, and of course, Longstreet.
Finding books on battles that aren’t Gettysburg is a little challenging; I happened to stumble across this one at a secondhand bookstore in Tucscon. But I think Rhea’s book ranks among the better battle narratives of the Civil War. He does justice to his characters - as a committed War Horse disciple, by way of Shaara, I especially enjoyed his characterization of Longstreet and his brilliant smash-up with Hancock - and in the welter of names, he manages to make people stand out well. He captures the action clearly, and makes the choice to divide up sections by Union and Confederate narratives. With battle narratives, it’s easy to lose sight of the correlation between the brigade-by-brigade action and the great corps-level movement; Rhea matches these up well - something I found missing in Sears’s To the Gates of Richmond, for example.
Rhea is a smooth, elouent writer. He particularly shines in the work of laying out the battlefield manuevers and actions, mapping them out with easy coherency. He knows his source material well, and presents the conflicts in sources with well-summarized explanations and analyses, without ever getting bogged down, all while providing a fascinating level of detail.
The miss comes, for me, in the next layer of analysis. Rhea summarizes battlefield movements and analyzes their impact and implications - making the case, for example, that had Longstreet arrived earlier, his smashing of Hancock’s troops would not have been so absolute. But he does not really analyze the battle and its impact on the whole. The Wilderness, he states, marks a new type of warfare for Grant, but he does not really say anything more about this, or analyze it or the path to this conclusion. (He does mildly refute the old “Grant the butcher” claim, although again, without much detail). And he says nothing about the decisive moment in which the troops realized that, for the first time after being checked, they meant to move South. The battlefield narrative is excellent, but there is no context beyond it. A battle is one piece of a campaign, but in this narrative, it is divorced from that fabric.
While Rhea writes well, and smoothly, and allows the narratives and his deft, almost subtle, action summations speak for themselves, I missed seeing some stronger prose here. I never found any truly great writing, or any conclusions that really made me stop and think. I missed some of the sensations, too: while I understood what was happening clearly, I don’t think I ever felt it.
Overall, I think Rhea has crafted a well-written battle book that I would absolutely recommend, especially for someone looking for actual good fighting; however, it is light on overall analysis, missing some of the color and personality that could characterize a battle like the Wilderness.
The Wilderness runs rife with great characters, too. Bumbling confusion and uncertainty clutters the narratives of a great many earlier battles; by the time of the Wilderness, men knew their grim trade well, from the soldiers to the generals (at least, most of them). Confusion abounds in the dense uncertainty of the Wilderness, of course - this dense, thicket-snarled tract of second-growth timber - but it is not the naive bewilderment of the Peninsula campaigns, and this makes for a grimly powerful narrative, peopled by men ironed into legend and competence: Hancock, Grant, Lee, Cutler and his Iron Brigade, and of course, Longstreet.
Finding books on battles that aren’t Gettysburg is a little challenging; I happened to stumble across this one at a secondhand bookstore in Tucscon. But I think Rhea’s book ranks among the better battle narratives of the Civil War. He does justice to his characters - as a committed War Horse disciple, by way of Shaara, I especially enjoyed his characterization of Longstreet and his brilliant smash-up with Hancock - and in the welter of names, he manages to make people stand out well. He captures the action clearly, and makes the choice to divide up sections by Union and Confederate narratives. With battle narratives, it’s easy to lose sight of the correlation between the brigade-by-brigade action and the great corps-level movement; Rhea matches these up well - something I found missing in Sears’s To the Gates of Richmond, for example.
Rhea is a smooth, elouent writer. He particularly shines in the work of laying out the battlefield manuevers and actions, mapping them out with easy coherency. He knows his source material well, and presents the conflicts in sources with well-summarized explanations and analyses, without ever getting bogged down, all while providing a fascinating level of detail.
The miss comes, for me, in the next layer of analysis. Rhea summarizes battlefield movements and analyzes their impact and implications - making the case, for example, that had Longstreet arrived earlier, his smashing of Hancock’s troops would not have been so absolute. But he does not really analyze the battle and its impact on the whole. The Wilderness, he states, marks a new type of warfare for Grant, but he does not really say anything more about this, or analyze it or the path to this conclusion. (He does mildly refute the old “Grant the butcher” claim, although again, without much detail). And he says nothing about the decisive moment in which the troops realized that, for the first time after being checked, they meant to move South. The battlefield narrative is excellent, but there is no context beyond it. A battle is one piece of a campaign, but in this narrative, it is divorced from that fabric.
While Rhea writes well, and smoothly, and allows the narratives and his deft, almost subtle, action summations speak for themselves, I missed seeing some stronger prose here. I never found any truly great writing, or any conclusions that really made me stop and think. I missed some of the sensations, too: while I understood what was happening clearly, I don’t think I ever felt it.
Overall, I think Rhea has crafted a well-written battle book that I would absolutely recommend, especially for someone looking for actual good fighting; however, it is light on overall analysis, missing some of the color and personality that could characterize a battle like the Wilderness.
August 30, 2013
The Battle of the Wilderness was at one and the same time one of the most confused encounters of the Civil War and one of the grimmest. On one hand, most of the battle took place in a second-growth scrub forest interspersed with small hillocks and swamps. There were two roads that cut horizontally across the field: The Orange Turnpike and the Orange Plank Road. Because of the terrain between the two roads, it was difficult to coordinate attacks without straying in the forest. Toward the end of the battle, so many trees were cut down by bullets that few plants were above the height of a man. And there weren't enough open spaces to make artillery effective.
In such a situation, the advantage went to the defender. It is likely that the Confederates took fewer casualties, especially when they were firing from entrenched positions; and the Union launched more attacks.
This was Grant's first battle with the Army of the Potomac, and few of his corps and division commanders came out with their reputations undamaged. Meade was far too concerned with defending his supply wagons to make effective use of his cavalry; and Burnside, who refused to take orders from Meade because he outranked him, was excessively dilatory in reaching his positions. For the last time, Grant let Meade take command. From now until Appommatox, Grant planned all the battles.
Although the Confederates regard the Wilderness as a victory, Grant did one thing that marked him as different from all the previous Army of the Potomac commanders: Instead of retreating to lick his wounds, he moved south toward Spotsylvania Court House, where the terrain for battle was better and ten miles closer to Richmond. Lee was forced to follow Grant's lead. From here on, it would be a far different war.
Virtually on Southern men who were between the ages of 17 and 64 were already in the Army. The north, on the other hand, had some 2.5 million men of military age who could be conscripted (not without a fight, however). Grant had bodies to burn. Whenever Lee lost a man, he was irreplaceable. Grant had bodies to burn and no compunction about burning them when needed for ultimate victory.
In Grant, Lincoln finally found a general who could win.
In such a situation, the advantage went to the defender. It is likely that the Confederates took fewer casualties, especially when they were firing from entrenched positions; and the Union launched more attacks.
This was Grant's first battle with the Army of the Potomac, and few of his corps and division commanders came out with their reputations undamaged. Meade was far too concerned with defending his supply wagons to make effective use of his cavalry; and Burnside, who refused to take orders from Meade because he outranked him, was excessively dilatory in reaching his positions. For the last time, Grant let Meade take command. From now until Appommatox, Grant planned all the battles.
Although the Confederates regard the Wilderness as a victory, Grant did one thing that marked him as different from all the previous Army of the Potomac commanders: Instead of retreating to lick his wounds, he moved south toward Spotsylvania Court House, where the terrain for battle was better and ten miles closer to Richmond. Lee was forced to follow Grant's lead. From here on, it would be a far different war.
Virtually on Southern men who were between the ages of 17 and 64 were already in the Army. The north, on the other hand, had some 2.5 million men of military age who could be conscripted (not without a fight, however). Grant had bodies to burn. Whenever Lee lost a man, he was irreplaceable. Grant had bodies to burn and no compunction about burning them when needed for ultimate victory.
In Grant, Lincoln finally found a general who could win.
June 27, 2020
The first installment of the author's magisterial five volume treatment of the Overland Campaign. The author convincingly tells the story from the soldier's viewpoint with many firsthand accounts of the action. The author supports the contention that Lee didn't outmaneuver Grant, but that the battle was fought to a draw where Grant's superior numbers were negated by the terrain of the battlefield. This five volume set is shaping up to be my great summer reading project although I'm looking to read the three volume unabridged edition of Lee's Lieutenants as well. Anyway, a great starting point for those that want a straightforward yet in depth view of the Overland Campaign.
March 18, 2023
Among all the American Civil War battles I've studied – Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Antietam, First and Second Manassas, Shiloh, Fredericksburg, among others – the fiercest fought, bloodiest, with the most dramatic shifting of fortunes, is invariably whatever battle I'm studying at the time. My conclusion is that, beyond tallying the dead, wounded and missing, there is no point in such comparisons. To a soldier in the Blue or the Gray, it was all terror and suffering with brief periods of relief and elation.
Was their experience any worse in one engagement over another, can you really rank the suffering: the Hornet's Nest at Shiloh, Little Round Top or the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg, the Cornfield or the Bloody Lane at Antietam, Stonewall Jackson's surprise flank attack at Chancellorsville, Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg? As a noncombatant lounging in my reading chair, these all conjure up pure horror in equal measure.
Which brings me to the beginning of Grant's campaign against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, the Overland Campaign, as given in THE BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS. This is the first in Gordon C. Rhea's 5-volume study of Grant's campaign, which is followed by: The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, May 7-12, 1864; To the North Anna River, May 13-25; Cold Harbor, May 26-June 3; On to Petersburg, June 4-15, 1864. The terrain was no place for Grant to exercise his great numerical advantage: the dense woods, choked with thickets, scattered creeks and swampland, virtually nullified his cavalry and artillery, made communication and coordinated maneuvers difficult if not impossible. The result was scattered and isolated units, ill-timed and under-supported advances, with little opportunity to execute the Union's lethal mass firing potential.
Units lost sight of one another in patches of dwarf pine and matted underbrush, emerging in tangled muddles with other detachments or careering off on tangents on their own. Companies clawed single file through sharp patches of thornbush interwoven with briers and stumbled into fetid little swamps and gullies where vision was limited to a few yards. Whole regiments were swallowed up. – 142
Rhea finds a fitting balance between meticulously detailed troop movements and overall strategic overviews of the battle's progression. Generous first person accounts from both rebel and Union soldiers humanizes the strategy, tactics, and statistics.
A more difficult and disagreeable field of battle,” concluded one of Ewell's veterans, “could not well be imagined.” – 125
Confederate bullets sang into Bartlett's formation, which began dropping blue forms onto the trampled corn stubble as it advanced. On came the determined Yankees, up a small rise and straight into the thickets. Michigan skirmishers hit the fringe of the woods first and were immediately snapped back by a 'severe fire.' Gritting their teeth, soldiers in Bartlett's first line leaned into the storm of bullets as though encountering a strong wind. 'A volcano yawned before us,' related a Maine man, 'and vomited forth fire, and lead, and death.' Bartlett's forward elements faltered but managed to hold on until the second line pulled up, stiffened with reinforcements from Sweitzer's brigade. Together they threw themselves into the Confederate guns. Fighting at point-blank range, rebel and Union lines blasted away at each other. 'What a medley of sounds, ' a Federal veteran recalled. 'The incessant roar of the rifle; the screaming bullets; the forest on fire; men cheering, groaning, yelling, swearing, and praying! All this created an experience in the minds of the survivors that we can never forget.'-- 153
While some maps are provided, I didn't find their number or detail adequate to guide the reader clearly through the complex movements of the forces involved. I would suggest the reader avail himself of the excellent maps provided by the American Battlefield Trust (www.battlefields.org).
An incredibly engrossing and informative read. I look forward to Rhea's remaining works in his Overland Campaign series.
Was their experience any worse in one engagement over another, can you really rank the suffering: the Hornet's Nest at Shiloh, Little Round Top or the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg, the Cornfield or the Bloody Lane at Antietam, Stonewall Jackson's surprise flank attack at Chancellorsville, Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg? As a noncombatant lounging in my reading chair, these all conjure up pure horror in equal measure.
Which brings me to the beginning of Grant's campaign against Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, the Overland Campaign, as given in THE BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS. This is the first in Gordon C. Rhea's 5-volume study of Grant's campaign, which is followed by: The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, May 7-12, 1864; To the North Anna River, May 13-25; Cold Harbor, May 26-June 3; On to Petersburg, June 4-15, 1864. The terrain was no place for Grant to exercise his great numerical advantage: the dense woods, choked with thickets, scattered creeks and swampland, virtually nullified his cavalry and artillery, made communication and coordinated maneuvers difficult if not impossible. The result was scattered and isolated units, ill-timed and under-supported advances, with little opportunity to execute the Union's lethal mass firing potential.
Units lost sight of one another in patches of dwarf pine and matted underbrush, emerging in tangled muddles with other detachments or careering off on tangents on their own. Companies clawed single file through sharp patches of thornbush interwoven with briers and stumbled into fetid little swamps and gullies where vision was limited to a few yards. Whole regiments were swallowed up. – 142
Rhea finds a fitting balance between meticulously detailed troop movements and overall strategic overviews of the battle's progression. Generous first person accounts from both rebel and Union soldiers humanizes the strategy, tactics, and statistics.
A more difficult and disagreeable field of battle,” concluded one of Ewell's veterans, “could not well be imagined.” – 125
Confederate bullets sang into Bartlett's formation, which began dropping blue forms onto the trampled corn stubble as it advanced. On came the determined Yankees, up a small rise and straight into the thickets. Michigan skirmishers hit the fringe of the woods first and were immediately snapped back by a 'severe fire.' Gritting their teeth, soldiers in Bartlett's first line leaned into the storm of bullets as though encountering a strong wind. 'A volcano yawned before us,' related a Maine man, 'and vomited forth fire, and lead, and death.' Bartlett's forward elements faltered but managed to hold on until the second line pulled up, stiffened with reinforcements from Sweitzer's brigade. Together they threw themselves into the Confederate guns. Fighting at point-blank range, rebel and Union lines blasted away at each other. 'What a medley of sounds, ' a Federal veteran recalled. 'The incessant roar of the rifle; the screaming bullets; the forest on fire; men cheering, groaning, yelling, swearing, and praying! All this created an experience in the minds of the survivors that we can never forget.'-- 153
While some maps are provided, I didn't find their number or detail adequate to guide the reader clearly through the complex movements of the forces involved. I would suggest the reader avail himself of the excellent maps provided by the American Battlefield Trust (www.battlefields.org).
An incredibly engrossing and informative read. I look forward to Rhea's remaining works in his Overland Campaign series.
February 11, 2022
After deftly summing up the strategic situation as winter turned to spring in 1864, Gordon Rhea, along with the Army of the Potomac (AotP), plunges into the Wilderness to kick off his first of five volumes narrating the Overland Campaign in May-June of that spring. Grant had been brought east to command the Union armies (leaving Sherman in command in the West) and he decided to accompany Meade's AotP, leaving the victor of Gettysburg in command of that army. His objective: to destroy Lee's Army of Northern Virginia (ANV) - the AotP outnumbered the ANV by roughly 2 to 1 and had much stronger artillery. Grant intended to let Meade command the campaign as he saw fit, but complicating the chain of command was the presence of Burnside's 9th Corps, since Burnside ranked Meade, so Grant gave orders to Burnside directly. Lee was dug in behind the Rapidan, so Grant decided to turn him out of that position on Lee's right. The problem was how to get Meade's massive army both over the river and through the woods: literally, the Wilderness, a secondary growth region of difficult-to-impossible to see through, let alone move through, thickets and overgrown marshes. The Wilderness both guarded Lee's right, and was the perfect place for an outnumbered army to befuddle a larger foe who would not be able to deploy his cannons. Meade kind-heartedly allowed his troops a night's rest as they were entering the Wilderness, giving Lee time to move 2 corps into the region to stymie the Union advance. The result was a brutal 2-day slug-fest in the woods, a defensive victory for Lee's men, and a less-than-stellar showing by the AotP, leaving Grant with the feeling that he needed to take the reins and directly control that army's operations but, rather than retreat and try again, as it had after previous defeats, the Army of the Potomac was going to push on southward. Rhea has mastered the sources, and he is able to get inside the heads of the various commanders here, as well as describing the battles with a prose I can only describe as Cattonesque. I look forward to continuing the saga. On to Richmond!
July 18, 2012
This is a very good book about this first meeting between Grant and Lee. Rhea has clearly mastered the source material on this destructive engagement and the breadth of the primary sources that he uses is very impressive. He presents a penetrating analysis of both days and his narrative is clear and conscise. The activity on the Orange Plank Road and the Orange Turnpike is broken down by phase, and Longstreet's breaking of Hancock's line is exciting. Rhea also manages to explain Burnside's movements and how the 9th Corps fit into Grant's overall scheme of maneuver. Rhea also makes a point of highlighting how the Army of the Potomac, under Grant, attempted to coordinate the various corps to achieve a simultaneous offensive against the ANV. Grant was the first general to attempt this with the AOP. The book is filled with eyewitness accounts, and what made the most significant impression on me was the cost in lives and the descriptions of the carnage. There were still bodies in the Wilderness more than a year after the battle, not just in the thickets, but also along Ewell's entrenchments along the Turnpike and along Hancock's old line on Brock Road. Rhea also describes the field hospitals. The human toll was simply staggering, and the willingness of the armies to batter each other into submission is one of the points to reflect upon, on reading this book.
January 2, 2026
One of the best battle histories yet written. Not flawless, mind you, but Rhea has a crisp style, and the book uses some great maps. My only big complaint is that Rhea follows the current trend (or perhaps anticipated) of being hard on Lee and easy on Grant.
January 28, 2015
I have heard of Gordon Rhea's Overland Campaign tetralogy for years and with a lecture coming up about the campaign it was time to finally read them.
I was quite pleased to find the first book (this one) lives up to the hype. This is a very detailed and well-written account of the two days of fighting in the Wilderness accompanied by good maps. It gives sufficient attention to both the common soldiers' experience and the decisions by the commanders. Rhea also seems to be a pretty fair writer without particular bias towards Union or Confederate, or for/against any particular generals.
I would have appreciated a little more background on the lead up to the campaign: the reorganization of the AotP (from 5 corps to 3), why Burnside and the IX Corps were involved, why the Union cavalry ended up commanded mostly by generals without prior cavalry experience (Sheridan, Wilson, Torbert). While this would have been stretching a 450-page book even further, I think those details are important for this battle and the Overland Campaign as a whole.
Very pleased with the first volume and promptly started the next one on Spotsylvania. Strongly recommended to anyone interested in the Civil War.
I was quite pleased to find the first book (this one) lives up to the hype. This is a very detailed and well-written account of the two days of fighting in the Wilderness accompanied by good maps. It gives sufficient attention to both the common soldiers' experience and the decisions by the commanders. Rhea also seems to be a pretty fair writer without particular bias towards Union or Confederate, or for/against any particular generals.
I would have appreciated a little more background on the lead up to the campaign: the reorganization of the AotP (from 5 corps to 3), why Burnside and the IX Corps were involved, why the Union cavalry ended up commanded mostly by generals without prior cavalry experience (Sheridan, Wilson, Torbert). While this would have been stretching a 450-page book even further, I think those details are important for this battle and the Overland Campaign as a whole.
Very pleased with the first volume and promptly started the next one on Spotsylvania. Strongly recommended to anyone interested in the Civil War.
September 9, 2018
In The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864, Gordon C. Rhea charts the first meeting between Confederate General Robert E. Lee and Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the darkened, tangled forest west of Fredericksburg, Virginia, which ended with high casualties on both sides but no clear victor.
Rhea clarifies and explains a battle that even its participants found confusing and hard to comprehend. With its balanced analysis of events and people, command structures and strategies, The Battle of the Wilderness is a thorough and meticulous military history. This is the first of a five volume series on General Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign during the American Civil War.
Prior to 1864, the Eastern Theater had mostly been a war of maneuver. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia jockeyed back and forth with the Union Army of the Potomac with little to show for it. In April 1864, both armies sat facing one another across the Rapidan River, almost exactly where they had been one year earlier.
General Ulysses S. Grant was determined to change that, and the Battle of the Wilderness proved it. This chaotic struggle touched off the Overland Campaign, a brutal grind toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Rather than retreat to lick its wounds, as Army of the Potomac usually did after a major battle, Grant ordered it around Lee’s flank to the southeast. Finally, President Abraham Lincoln found a General who was not afraid of Robert E. Lee.
With clear but detailed prose, Gordon C. Rhea shows how divided command crippled the Union Army. While George G. Meade commanded the Army of the Potomac, Ambrose Burnside commanded the IX Corps, which was formally part of the Army of the Ohio. Because he technically outranked Meade, Burnside reported directly to Grant. Grant gave both generals considerable leeway during the battle. “The Union army’s overwhelming size should by itself have guaranteed success, but careless generalship had forfeited the golden opportunity,” he wrote.
The Confederate army was not without controversy. On May 6, Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon found the Union army’s flank in the air and sought permission from his division commander, Jubal Early, to attack the exposed flank. By the time his corps commander, Richard Ewell, approved the plan, it was shortly before dark and Gordon had no time to exploit his success. Later, Gordon claimed Lee personally ordered the attack when he saw its potential. Rhea deconstructs this claim and finds Gordon embellished (or outright fabricated) events to enhance his reputation.
Like all previous offensives that day, he concluded, “In the end, Gordon’s plan accomplished little more than to add names to the casualty lists.”
Gordon C. Rhea (born March 10, 1945) is a military historian specializing in the Overland Campaign in Virginia during the American Civil War. He is a graduate of Indiana University, Stanford Law School, and Harvard University and is a practicing attorney in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. His other books include To the North Anna River (2000), The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House (1997), and Cold Harbor (2002).
Rhea clarifies and explains a battle that even its participants found confusing and hard to comprehend. With its balanced analysis of events and people, command structures and strategies, The Battle of the Wilderness is a thorough and meticulous military history. This is the first of a five volume series on General Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign during the American Civil War.
Prior to 1864, the Eastern Theater had mostly been a war of maneuver. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia jockeyed back and forth with the Union Army of the Potomac with little to show for it. In April 1864, both armies sat facing one another across the Rapidan River, almost exactly where they had been one year earlier.
General Ulysses S. Grant was determined to change that, and the Battle of the Wilderness proved it. This chaotic struggle touched off the Overland Campaign, a brutal grind toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Rather than retreat to lick its wounds, as Army of the Potomac usually did after a major battle, Grant ordered it around Lee’s flank to the southeast. Finally, President Abraham Lincoln found a General who was not afraid of Robert E. Lee.
With clear but detailed prose, Gordon C. Rhea shows how divided command crippled the Union Army. While George G. Meade commanded the Army of the Potomac, Ambrose Burnside commanded the IX Corps, which was formally part of the Army of the Ohio. Because he technically outranked Meade, Burnside reported directly to Grant. Grant gave both generals considerable leeway during the battle. “The Union army’s overwhelming size should by itself have guaranteed success, but careless generalship had forfeited the golden opportunity,” he wrote.
The Confederate army was not without controversy. On May 6, Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon found the Union army’s flank in the air and sought permission from his division commander, Jubal Early, to attack the exposed flank. By the time his corps commander, Richard Ewell, approved the plan, it was shortly before dark and Gordon had no time to exploit his success. Later, Gordon claimed Lee personally ordered the attack when he saw its potential. Rhea deconstructs this claim and finds Gordon embellished (or outright fabricated) events to enhance his reputation.
Like all previous offensives that day, he concluded, “In the end, Gordon’s plan accomplished little more than to add names to the casualty lists.”
Gordon C. Rhea (born March 10, 1945) is a military historian specializing in the Overland Campaign in Virginia during the American Civil War. He is a graduate of Indiana University, Stanford Law School, and Harvard University and is a practicing attorney in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. His other books include To the North Anna River (2000), The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House (1997), and Cold Harbor (2002).
July 11, 2019
One of the most outstanding battle books I have ever read!
October 19, 2011
The Battle of the Wilderness is oft-neglected in the popular history of the American Civil War and even in serious studies has not garnered the due it deserves. Fought in the wild forest-lands of Spotsylvania County and Orange County, Virginia, it ended in a deadlock without the Union forces retreating but without them gaining ground on General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The Union build-up of men and supplies prior to their first onslaught on the Confederates was one of the largest logistical tasks of the entire war and yet it did not ensure them the victory they presumed would be granted due to their greater might and firepower. As this "battle" raged in wooded lands and not a traditional battlefield, there were a lot of minor skirmishes here and there and the greatest aspects of the Battle of the Wilderness really were writ small in the personal letters of the troops back to fathers, mothers, and girlfriends where they related the complex, often horrific, and fascinating warfare they'd seen firsthand.
Gordon Rhea, an experienced Civil War author and historian collected these smaller tales with care and places them together within a comprehensive account of the overall story of of the Battle of the Wilderness. He tells us of this battle with uncommon verve and candor, really bringing it alive. The maps are as good as you'd expect from an author highly concerned with the tactics at hand, and the leading generals and other commanders are sketched out in vivid detail allowing you to study their personalities in depth. If you enjoy old-school battle histories where the author avoids social history, revisionism, or other means of placing external, contemporary, concepts on deeds done long ago, you'll love this book: it is classic Civil War battle history for military buffs to enjoy with a glass of bourbon by a roaring fire in a cabin high in the Virginia mountains.
Gordon Rhea, an experienced Civil War author and historian collected these smaller tales with care and places them together within a comprehensive account of the overall story of of the Battle of the Wilderness. He tells us of this battle with uncommon verve and candor, really bringing it alive. The maps are as good as you'd expect from an author highly concerned with the tactics at hand, and the leading generals and other commanders are sketched out in vivid detail allowing you to study their personalities in depth. If you enjoy old-school battle histories where the author avoids social history, revisionism, or other means of placing external, contemporary, concepts on deeds done long ago, you'll love this book: it is classic Civil War battle history for military buffs to enjoy with a glass of bourbon by a roaring fire in a cabin high in the Virginia mountains.
February 13, 2023
I visited the Wilderness Battlefield in May 2017. I remember walking through the woods and imagining the carnage that took place in that thick tangle of woods. Two of my ancestors fought for the Union here as well. Because of my personal ties here, visiting it and being interested in the Civil War, I really wanted to read about this battle. This book came up in my research and I purchased it after seeing the great reviews. This book does the Overland Campaign justice, and it is a shame there are not a lot of books dedicated to this campaign. Rhea did an impressive job in his research ,and describing the movement of the armies and the action of the battle. Where Rhea really shines is his criticism of Lee and Grant as well as their subordinates. Some Civil War books just blame the overall general in charge, which was not always the case. Grant, Lee and their subordinates alike made errors here that could have changed the outcome of the battle easily. For me, this is the definitive book on the Battle of the Wilderness.
July 2, 2013
The Battle of the Wilderness is widely viewed as a draw. Although the Union Army suffered 50% more casualties, Grant, recently appointed as the commander and chief of the Union Army, showed a new aggressiveness which initiated the end game for the civil war. This is the definitive reference on the Battle of the Wilderness complete with extensive references. Gordon Rhea makes a special point to compare the memoirs of many participants to get a balanced viewpoint on each decision and account of events. His analysis of the significance of the battle to each side and the decisions of each side is especially noteworthy. Lee, Grant, and Meade were all subject to critical analysis: “…Lee made several decisions during the battle which put his army and his cause in serious jeopardy.. Outnumbered two to one… he was willing to gamble everything on a decisive blow.” A must read for fans of the Battle of the Wilderness.
March 4, 2015
When I began this, I felt a little intimidated by the scale of the book. Maybe because my brief prior knowledge of the battle helped, but I found this to be wonderfully written. It felt very easy to understand the placements of each army. I'm very excited to continue onto his book on Spotsylvania.
August 21, 2015
Very thorough, good job. Well documented.
August 2, 2019
This review is for all books in Gordon C. Rhea's Overland Campaign series, including:
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: Grant and Lee, May 13-25, 1864
Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864
Gordon C. Rhea's Overland Campaign is a large study of a large campaign, stretching four books, 2,053 pages, and thirty days of conflict in May and June of 1864. From the tangles of the Wilderness to the futile assaults of Cold Harbor, Rhea covers every action, large and small, undertaken by the Army of the Potomac or the Army of Northern Virginia.
Rhea's study is certainly the largest and most prominent of works on the campaign. He covers the military aspects with a high degree of precision, down to the regimental and even company level, on occasion. The extensive bibliography and reliance upon the words of the participants also speaks to his knowledge of his subject.
The series is not without fault. Rhea habitually fails to place the campaign in its broader context, and does not cover anything beyond the military affairs of the two armies. Rhea also has some growing pains as an author, becoming better as the series moves on. Ultimately, I rated each book as follows:
Book 1: Three Stars
Book 2: Three Stars
Book 3: Three and a half Stars
Book 4: Four Stars
Series as a Whole: Four Stars
One of the biggest problems holding the series back, particularly in reading each book individually, is the structure of the work. Rhea goes through the campaign day by day, with each chapter covering a specific stretch of time. Thus, a single chapter might cover one day of the campaign, or a portion of one day.
In some respects, this organization makes sense. When taking the series as a whole, the reader is able to better experience the passage of time and the length of the campaign. Given the differences between this campaign and the rest of the Civil War, emphasizing the timeline of events does have merit.
Where this system falls short, however, is in the beginning or ending of each book. The books begin abruptly and end equally so, often seemingly randomly. Book 2 (Spotsylvania) is particularly at fault, ending as the fighting on May 12th concludes. However, the Battle of Spotsylvania will continue until May 21st. The decision to conclude is obviously influenced by length; it is nonetheless disconcerting.
These abrupt opening and closings mean that each book also lacks a proper introduction or conclusion. Individually, this is damaging to each book, but if they are read with an eye to the whole series, it isn't so bad between the books. The story will simply continue into the next book. One of the biggest problems of the series, however, is the lack of an introduction to the whole campaign (in Book 1) and a conclusion to the whole campaign as well (in Book 4). Rhea fails to truly impart a sense of gravitas on the campaign as a result. From the start, there is little sense of the broader pressures upon Lee and Grant, and relatively little discussion of the state of affairs in either army. The histories of the corps commanders is focused upon briefly, but lacking in detail. The reorganization of the Army of the Potomac (the largest it underwent) is also not mentioned in any substantial way.
On the other end of the series is the lack of a conclusion. In part, this may be due to the fact that Rhea was planning a fifth book, to cover the movement from Cold Harbor to the James River (mentioned in the preface of Book 4). However, since Cold Harbor was published in 2002, and this fifth book has yet to materialize, it seems unlikely to be forthcoming soon. Consequently, Rhea's study concludes suddenly on June 3rd, after the assaults. Left out is the much-delayed truce, the mood of the army after Cold Harbor, and the masterful move to the James River.
Rhea also focuses exclusively upon military affairs. While this may allow for greater levels of detail there, the series as a whole suffers as a result. Rhea does not discuss political or cultural affairs. This seems bizarre, particularly when compared to other campaign studies. A campaign study about Antietam or Chancellorsville, for instance, would be incomplete if Lincoln and his relationship with his main officer in this highly political army was simply left out. Why, then, should it be left out here, particularly since Grant is much more in the limelight in the East than he would ever be in the west? Equally lacking is mood of Richmond, since the campaign is growing ever closer, and the hospitals and prisons are filling up with the campaign's detritus.
To some extent, discussion of cultural and political affairs would be difficult within Rhea's chosen structure. As the campaign is covered chronologically, the cultural reaction to the Wilderness would not occur until the next book, and so on, as the news takes time to trickle to the public. While excluding these issues allows the structure to work, it would also seem to indicate that the wrong structure was chosen in the first place.
Without these non-military issues, the campaign feels only half covered. It is this limitation that ultimately reduces the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of Rhea's work. Removing the campaign from its broader context isolates it unnecessarily and produces large holes.
A prime example of the issues arising from this problem is Rhea's discussion, or lack thereof, of Ferrero's 4th Division, IX Corps. This division consisted entirely of African-American soldiers, the first such formation of its kind, and the first such soldiers to fight in the Army of the Potomac or against the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant would ultimately chose not to use the division for much of anything, since, as Rhea briefly mentions, it is a "political hot potato" (To the North Anna River, 105). Since the division is only briefly engaged on May 15th, Rhea discusses the division for only a few paragraphs. Considering Grant decides not to use several thousand men that could be useful in any of the engagements, Rhea's failure to analyze the division, its politics, and Grant's decision is truly disappointing.
A similar example would be the lack of much discussion on how trenches were constructed, how they changed over the campaign, and what a defensive line would ultimately look like. Rhea truly missed an opportunity, given the importance of trenches, and how their construction changed over just this month of combat. Instead, he seems to simply assume that the reader knows all of this already.
While there are problems, Rhea's series is still a good study of the battles and campaigns themselves. There are some problems with his writing style, but as this factor is largely based on personal tastes, it can be difficult to judge how much it should affect the overall view of the series. One of the largest problems was Rhea's tendency to start quotes from common soldiers with, "A Virginian wrote..." or "One man reported..." or "One said..." or "A soldier wrote..." While it isn't necessary to identify in the text the exact source of every quote, Rhea will sometimes have multiple quotes or anecdotes in a single paragraph without identifying by name any of the authors. Thankfully, this annoying habit is lessened as the series goes on.
Rhea does also make very good use of his sources. Everything is well documented in notes found after the main text, detailing the sources and providing additional commentary (for those who simply skip over notes sections wholesale, you are missing out. There are a large number of hidden treats back there). The bibliography also demonstrates Rhea's broad command of his chosen subject. There are few gaps in the material he used to formulate his narrative.
Rhea's command of his material truly shows when he makes specific arguments. He convincingly deconstructs the idea of Grant as a general who always went for the bloodbath of frontal assaults. He also clearly illuminates the failings of Lee, who while he performed wonderfully, did make mistakes that nearly cost his army. In nearly every case, the arguments are well supported by the information available.
There are, as mentioned, certain advantages to Rhea's chosen structure. By moving from hour to hour, day to day, the length of the actions is clearly driven through. A reader moving through his series will gain a very good understanding of the evolution of combat, the changes in command and in troops, and generally how the soldiers and officers adapted to the new realities of war in 1864.
The true strength of Rhea's work shines through when he is covering smaller battles or campaigns of maneuver that other authors would simply overlook in favor of the main battles. Battles such as Haw's Shop, Totopotomoy Creek, or Meadow Creek are given due consideration. Rhea also devotes considerable attention to the days where small skirmishes would flare up, never rising to the point of full scale battle but nonetheless important for those partaking in the fight. These oft-ignored actions further demonstrate the differences in warfare in 1864 as opposed to earlier in the war.
To The North Anna River and Cold Harbor are the strongest books. The former covers a period that would generally be overlooked in favor of the larger battles occurring on either side of it. In the latter, Rhea carefully deconstructs a large number of the myths that have sprung up around the battle, particularly the accusations of brutality on the part of Grant and Meade. When the assaults are taken in context of the whole campaign (the reader being aided in this by having read about a wide variety of assaults that seemed equally hopeless in the previous two books), the attack seems less egregious. Rhea also makes use of a text that was newly published at the time, by Alfred C. Young, to closely examine casualties during the battle. He drastically downgrades the losses from the initial assaults, and carefully backs up his findings with hard data and good reasoning.
Ultimately, Rhea's series of books on the Overland Campaign accomplish their goal. They are excellent military studies of the month-long slog from Wilderness to Cold Harbor. Although there are issues, particularly regarding missed opportunities in the work's focus, Rhea is clearly one of the foremost authors on the subject. Since taking the books individually would likely exacerbate the flaws of each, it is difficult to recommend just one for reading. Instead (as is already likely the case), readers should look to read all four books so that they may fully understand the whole of the campaign, rather than a part. Readers will ultimately be left looking, much like Grant, south of the James.
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: Grant and Lee, May 13-25, 1864
Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26-June 3, 1864
Gordon C. Rhea's Overland Campaign is a large study of a large campaign, stretching four books, 2,053 pages, and thirty days of conflict in May and June of 1864. From the tangles of the Wilderness to the futile assaults of Cold Harbor, Rhea covers every action, large and small, undertaken by the Army of the Potomac or the Army of Northern Virginia.
Rhea's study is certainly the largest and most prominent of works on the campaign. He covers the military aspects with a high degree of precision, down to the regimental and even company level, on occasion. The extensive bibliography and reliance upon the words of the participants also speaks to his knowledge of his subject.
The series is not without fault. Rhea habitually fails to place the campaign in its broader context, and does not cover anything beyond the military affairs of the two armies. Rhea also has some growing pains as an author, becoming better as the series moves on. Ultimately, I rated each book as follows:
Book 1: Three Stars
Book 2: Three Stars
Book 3: Three and a half Stars
Book 4: Four Stars
Series as a Whole: Four Stars
One of the biggest problems holding the series back, particularly in reading each book individually, is the structure of the work. Rhea goes through the campaign day by day, with each chapter covering a specific stretch of time. Thus, a single chapter might cover one day of the campaign, or a portion of one day.
In some respects, this organization makes sense. When taking the series as a whole, the reader is able to better experience the passage of time and the length of the campaign. Given the differences between this campaign and the rest of the Civil War, emphasizing the timeline of events does have merit.
Where this system falls short, however, is in the beginning or ending of each book. The books begin abruptly and end equally so, often seemingly randomly. Book 2 (Spotsylvania) is particularly at fault, ending as the fighting on May 12th concludes. However, the Battle of Spotsylvania will continue until May 21st. The decision to conclude is obviously influenced by length; it is nonetheless disconcerting.
These abrupt opening and closings mean that each book also lacks a proper introduction or conclusion. Individually, this is damaging to each book, but if they are read with an eye to the whole series, it isn't so bad between the books. The story will simply continue into the next book. One of the biggest problems of the series, however, is the lack of an introduction to the whole campaign (in Book 1) and a conclusion to the whole campaign as well (in Book 4). Rhea fails to truly impart a sense of gravitas on the campaign as a result. From the start, there is little sense of the broader pressures upon Lee and Grant, and relatively little discussion of the state of affairs in either army. The histories of the corps commanders is focused upon briefly, but lacking in detail. The reorganization of the Army of the Potomac (the largest it underwent) is also not mentioned in any substantial way.
On the other end of the series is the lack of a conclusion. In part, this may be due to the fact that Rhea was planning a fifth book, to cover the movement from Cold Harbor to the James River (mentioned in the preface of Book 4). However, since Cold Harbor was published in 2002, and this fifth book has yet to materialize, it seems unlikely to be forthcoming soon. Consequently, Rhea's study concludes suddenly on June 3rd, after the assaults. Left out is the much-delayed truce, the mood of the army after Cold Harbor, and the masterful move to the James River.
Rhea also focuses exclusively upon military affairs. While this may allow for greater levels of detail there, the series as a whole suffers as a result. Rhea does not discuss political or cultural affairs. This seems bizarre, particularly when compared to other campaign studies. A campaign study about Antietam or Chancellorsville, for instance, would be incomplete if Lincoln and his relationship with his main officer in this highly political army was simply left out. Why, then, should it be left out here, particularly since Grant is much more in the limelight in the East than he would ever be in the west? Equally lacking is mood of Richmond, since the campaign is growing ever closer, and the hospitals and prisons are filling up with the campaign's detritus.
To some extent, discussion of cultural and political affairs would be difficult within Rhea's chosen structure. As the campaign is covered chronologically, the cultural reaction to the Wilderness would not occur until the next book, and so on, as the news takes time to trickle to the public. While excluding these issues allows the structure to work, it would also seem to indicate that the wrong structure was chosen in the first place.
Without these non-military issues, the campaign feels only half covered. It is this limitation that ultimately reduces the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of Rhea's work. Removing the campaign from its broader context isolates it unnecessarily and produces large holes.
A prime example of the issues arising from this problem is Rhea's discussion, or lack thereof, of Ferrero's 4th Division, IX Corps. This division consisted entirely of African-American soldiers, the first such formation of its kind, and the first such soldiers to fight in the Army of the Potomac or against the Army of Northern Virginia. Grant would ultimately chose not to use the division for much of anything, since, as Rhea briefly mentions, it is a "political hot potato" (To the North Anna River, 105). Since the division is only briefly engaged on May 15th, Rhea discusses the division for only a few paragraphs. Considering Grant decides not to use several thousand men that could be useful in any of the engagements, Rhea's failure to analyze the division, its politics, and Grant's decision is truly disappointing.
A similar example would be the lack of much discussion on how trenches were constructed, how they changed over the campaign, and what a defensive line would ultimately look like. Rhea truly missed an opportunity, given the importance of trenches, and how their construction changed over just this month of combat. Instead, he seems to simply assume that the reader knows all of this already.
While there are problems, Rhea's series is still a good study of the battles and campaigns themselves. There are some problems with his writing style, but as this factor is largely based on personal tastes, it can be difficult to judge how much it should affect the overall view of the series. One of the largest problems was Rhea's tendency to start quotes from common soldiers with, "A Virginian wrote..." or "One man reported..." or "One said..." or "A soldier wrote..." While it isn't necessary to identify in the text the exact source of every quote, Rhea will sometimes have multiple quotes or anecdotes in a single paragraph without identifying by name any of the authors. Thankfully, this annoying habit is lessened as the series goes on.
Rhea does also make very good use of his sources. Everything is well documented in notes found after the main text, detailing the sources and providing additional commentary (for those who simply skip over notes sections wholesale, you are missing out. There are a large number of hidden treats back there). The bibliography also demonstrates Rhea's broad command of his chosen subject. There are few gaps in the material he used to formulate his narrative.
Rhea's command of his material truly shows when he makes specific arguments. He convincingly deconstructs the idea of Grant as a general who always went for the bloodbath of frontal assaults. He also clearly illuminates the failings of Lee, who while he performed wonderfully, did make mistakes that nearly cost his army. In nearly every case, the arguments are well supported by the information available.
There are, as mentioned, certain advantages to Rhea's chosen structure. By moving from hour to hour, day to day, the length of the actions is clearly driven through. A reader moving through his series will gain a very good understanding of the evolution of combat, the changes in command and in troops, and generally how the soldiers and officers adapted to the new realities of war in 1864.
The true strength of Rhea's work shines through when he is covering smaller battles or campaigns of maneuver that other authors would simply overlook in favor of the main battles. Battles such as Haw's Shop, Totopotomoy Creek, or Meadow Creek are given due consideration. Rhea also devotes considerable attention to the days where small skirmishes would flare up, never rising to the point of full scale battle but nonetheless important for those partaking in the fight. These oft-ignored actions further demonstrate the differences in warfare in 1864 as opposed to earlier in the war.
To The North Anna River and Cold Harbor are the strongest books. The former covers a period that would generally be overlooked in favor of the larger battles occurring on either side of it. In the latter, Rhea carefully deconstructs a large number of the myths that have sprung up around the battle, particularly the accusations of brutality on the part of Grant and Meade. When the assaults are taken in context of the whole campaign (the reader being aided in this by having read about a wide variety of assaults that seemed equally hopeless in the previous two books), the attack seems less egregious. Rhea also makes use of a text that was newly published at the time, by Alfred C. Young, to closely examine casualties during the battle. He drastically downgrades the losses from the initial assaults, and carefully backs up his findings with hard data and good reasoning.
Ultimately, Rhea's series of books on the Overland Campaign accomplish their goal. They are excellent military studies of the month-long slog from Wilderness to Cold Harbor. Although there are issues, particularly regarding missed opportunities in the work's focus, Rhea is clearly one of the foremost authors on the subject. Since taking the books individually would likely exacerbate the flaws of each, it is difficult to recommend just one for reading. Instead (as is already likely the case), readers should look to read all four books so that they may fully understand the whole of the campaign, rather than a part. Readers will ultimately be left looking, much like Grant, south of the James.
January 31, 2026
Ulysses S Grant has long been, for me, the most enigmatic participant in the American Civil War. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, he has left us little in the way of colorful quotes by which to weigh his personality. Gruff and silent, his presence nonetheless towers over all. Since my interest in the war began, atypically, in the Western Theater before spreading East, I'd acquired a solid understanding of Grant's battles in Tennessee and Mississippi before I first began exploring his activities in Virginia during the second phase of his command in the Overland and Petersburg campaigns, and the final dash to Appomattox Court House. By now I've read a good deal about the Eastern Theater as well, but along the way I learned about the recent works of Gordon C Rhea, and I eagerly longed to dip down into them.
So it is that I bought the first volume, the 1994 book The Battle of the Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864. The granularity of this kind of history-telling means it is not for everyone; however, this book excels by far many of its cousins in the genre in terms of sheer unputdownability. The titanic struggle between all of the remaining forces in Virginia in 1864 and into 1865 is epic, in every sense of the word. Exemplified, naturally enough, as a cosmic struggle between Grant and Lee, in truth we here see all the major participants in the East passing through the crucible in the first clash of the decisive battles which would inexorably transform the passage of American history from a romantic phase into its modern form. During these two days of battle, everyone from Lee and Grant on down to the many generals and their subordinates and the fighting privates of both contending armies had to begin to face the fact that everything they'd learned about this war so far was inadequate to the task at hand. Beginning in the Wilderness, both armies started becoming modern, brutal, efficient military machines.
We don't see it yet, but in the immediate aftermath of the Wilderness the established roles of many of the participants immediately changed in important ways. From here on Grant would take more direct control of the Union command away from George Meade. Ever more direct responsibility would fall on the shoulders of Lee as his subordinates were killed or departed wounded from the scene, or their limitations as aggressive fighters became ever more apparent. This continuing evolution toward modern warfare typifies the last year of the war in the East. The changes occurring in both armies necessitated continual adaptation among its opposing forces. The names of the major dramatis personae in both armies begin to change rapidly, until by the time of Petersburg the most important generals seem to have arisen out of nowhere. Many of their names never became familiar to most Americans, but their feats were heroic and often astonishing.
This is another reason why these Eastern battles fascinate me so much. In many ways their details remain largely unknown to those who emphasize places like Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Chancellorsville, Antietam, Gettysburg, Atlanta, and Savannah. The colossal struggle for Petersburg is Homeric in scale, yet is almost forgotten. In truth it's Petersburg that interests me most in these Eastern battles, but I'm more than content to move chronologically with Rhea on the way to the standardization of trench warfare, and everything that came after.
November 29, 2021
For a 500 page book that focuses on four days (May 3-6), and most of which is on two days divided into 3 (May 5-6), this is both a very fun read, and very judicious. The detail never seems just information or statistics, but are part of a fascinating narrative. Rhea shows that the horrors of the wilderness weren't the result of trying to fight a war of attrition (if that is understood as hurling large numbers of soldiers at well-defended positions in the hope of achieving something, as was often the case in WWI). Rather, they resulted from a combination of bad generalship on the corps level (from surprisingly Hancock and Sedgwick leaving themselves open to attack on the union side, and from Ewell, Hill, and Early on the other), bad reconnaissance (from Wilson in particular, but also Sheridan), and an unwieldy overall command situation of Grant alongside Meade and Burnside. Rhea also shows that sometimes caution can cause greater casualties than aggression, and particularly that the two in combination as happened in the Union army in one way (Grant and Meade aggressive here and corps command cautious) and in the confederate army in another (Lee, Longstreet, and Gordon aggressive, Ewell, Hill and Early cautious) can be even worse. I think Meade was a better general than he comes off in Rhea's telling. Grant is shown as a general of manouvre, and Lee as perhaps more aggressive than the situation warranted. The one General who comes off without a spot to my reading in both armies is Longstreet (even his biggest mistake actually turned out well for the rebels).
October 3, 2020
This was a very good book. Very well written account of the leaders and armies that faced off against each other in the Wilderness. Gordon Rhea gives a very detailed account of the battle and the strengths and weaknesses of each leader and how it affected the battle. The pivotal moment of Longstreet being shot and out of the battle will have you feeling like you were there beside him as the bullet hit and you can feel the shift in the tide of the counterstroke. You can feel the anger that Grant must have felt when the Army of the Potomac was fed piecemeal into a fight that they should have been concentrated together on. The frustration of Warren’s slow movement. You can also feel the overwhelming sense of what lay ahead when Grant saw all the casualties and burnt bodies of the dead. Overall a very good read and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the Civil War and the final year as it wound down to its bloody conclusion. Looking forward to the next book in the series.
April 20, 2025
Probably the best military history book I’ve ever read. Where some books in this genre can be dry with monotonous descriptions of units and troop movements, Gordon C Rhea writes a campaign history that’s hard to put down and easy to follow without sacrificing the extensive detail suggested by 450 pages covering just two days of combat. I was equally impressed with how I was able to keep a clear mental picture of each army’s movements, especially considering the confusing terrain of this battle. Typically I have separate maps that I consult as I read to keep the events straight in my mind, but that wasn’t necessary here. The included maps combined with clear descriptions made the many movements and counter movements easy to follow. It’s going to be a pleasure to continue reading this series.
January 8, 2018
I have read many books on the Civil War and this is one of the best. I was extremely impressed with how this book presented the details of this battle. The maps were clear and helpful. The detail was very good without being too much. The battle was a difficult one to fight and there was a lot of confusion between the commanders. The author of the book was able to paint the picture of what happened clearly and leaves the reader with a very good understanding of not only what happened but why. I also thought the author's critiques on all the commanders was a very fair and balanced account. This is an excellent accounting of the battle and I heartily recommend this book if you wish to understand fully and clearly this important battle.
August 11, 2021
Good account of the first battle of Grant’s Overland Campaign, the first time Grant and Lee faced each other. The author shows how the terrain affected troop movements in this see-saw battle in which neither side could claim victory. He also fairly analyzes what the commanders did right and what mistakes they made. The Battle of the Wilderness, and the battles that followed, showed Grant’s propensity to fight and Lee’s inclination to attack, even when outnumbered.
November 6, 2018
This an excellent book. The first hand accounts really make you believe you are there. You get the genius of Lee and the failure of Meade (Grant). The rebels were out-manned 2 to one and the Federals lost 17% of their force (dead , wounded, captured). I think his analysis is a little off, but the account is wonderful.
April 7, 2020
A comprehensive study of the Wilderness. Rhea gives a very detailed treatment of the battle and helped me better understand what happened and how it unfolded. He provides a very clear summary of all the key players and how their decisions and choices made during battle led to the results of it.
I look forward to reading the rest of his books on the Overland Campaign.
I look forward to reading the rest of his books on the Overland Campaign.
June 30, 2020
Well researched and written account of this Civil War battle that previously I didn't know much about. While it might have been a slight tactical victory for the South, it was strategically a Northern advantage since it depleted Confederate resources in men and materials and signaled a new philosophy for Union warfare - victory by attrition.
August 7, 2025
Just an amazing book! Organized well and with some really helpful map graphics to guide through an incredibly confusing battle. If you want to dive into the this Civil War campaign, just grab this book, it's all you need.
I think Rhea is a uniquely talented writer and am considering purchasing the box set of you books covering the Overland campaign.
I think Rhea is a uniquely talented writer and am considering purchasing the box set of you books covering the Overland campaign.
February 20, 2020
Five stars plus
If you enjoy and appreciate a step by step,bullet by bullet account of an incredible battle, this book is for you. We re truly indebted to the unhorse or hi effort. I look forward to the netbook in the series.
If you enjoy and appreciate a step by step,bullet by bullet account of an incredible battle, this book is for you. We re truly indebted to the unhorse or hi effort. I look forward to the netbook in the series.
July 10, 2020
Lots of great writers on the Civil War. Rhea on the Overland Campaign ranks with the very best for me. If you haven't read them, recommend you start here and work your way through. Especially good if you have the time to walk each battlefield as you finish the work.
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