The Virginia Campaign, 1864 And 1865

by Andrew Atkinson Humphreys

Most people still view the final, bloody confrontation between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee as a relentless grinding away of the Army of Northern Virginia in a continuous battle of attrition, attributing Grant's victory not to his generalship but to his overwhelming superiority in numbers. General Andrew A. Humphreys (1810–1883), chief of staff of the Army of the Potomac and later the fiery commander of the Second Corps, provides readers with a far more enlightened understanding in The Virginia Campaign, 1864 and 1865. Humphreys was known for his high military scholarship, conspicuous courage, and remarkable coolness in combat. Joshua Chamberlain hailed him as "the accomplished, heroic soldier, the noble and modest man."In The Virginia Campaign, Humphreys examines the strategy, battles, and consequences from the detached perspective of a historian intimately acquainted with his material. Especially valuable is his clear dissection of alternative plans of campaign. For readers seeking concise accounts of, and insightful analyses into, the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor, the siege of Petersburg, the capture of Richmond, and the surrender of Lee's army, this volume in the landmark Campaigns of the Civil War series more than fulfills the requirements.

Genres: Civil War, History

500 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 1885

Reviews

[Mark Saha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vol. XII - The Virginia Campaign of '64 and '65
The Scribners History of the Civil War (1883)

This book by Grant's Chief of Staff is still of value to historians but the most difficult for general readers. Quite simply, there is too much material to cover in a single volume. This is the story of Grant's drive south that ended the Civil War at Appomattox. It covers the battle of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, North Anna, Cold Harbor, the siege of Petersburg, and the final surrender. It is a concise account but the unsophisticated reader will need to be patient and google a lot of maps.

* * *

This book is part of the Scribners's series of 16 volumes on the Civil War on land and at sea, published in 1882-3. It took congress twenty years to finally allocate funds to have all official documents and battlefield communications assembled and sorted through. Americans could at last have an inside look at who actually said or did what, and when.

While that massive project was still underway, Scribners persuaded highly qualified people - most of them participants -- to write the individual volumes of this history in light of the new information. There is an immediacy to these brisk and readable accounts, making them a very good starting point for someone who wishes to study the conflict. After reading these, you can pick up any modern volume on any aspect of the war with good contextual grasp of how it fits into the overall picture.

Where these volumes fall short is maps, which are essential but inadequate because the publisher wanted to keep the price of each volume to one dollar – within reach of the ordinary person. The publisher advised readers to keep an atlas handy. Fortunately, today you can google “images” for good maps of almost anything under discussion. For the three naval volumes, you can also google images of the specific ships, or types of ships, under discussion.