Gordon Rhea, Cold Harbor, 1st ed, Signed

Description

Gordon Rhea continues his Overland Campaign Series with Cold Harbor.

In Gordon Rhea’s gripping fourth volume on the spring 1864 Overland campaign – which pitted Ulysses S. Grant against Robert E. Lee for the first time in the Civil War – the author vividly re-creates the battle and maneuvers from the North Anna stalemate through the Cold Harbor offensive.

Once again Rhea’s tenacious research elicits stunning new facts from the record, and the Cold Harbor of these pages differs sharply from the Cold Harbor of popular lore.

We see Grant, in one of his most brilliant moves, pull his army across the North Anna River and steal a march on Lee. In response, Lee sets up a strong defensive line along Totopotomoy Creek, and the battles spark across woods and fields northeast of Richmond. Their back to the Chickahominy River and on their last legs, the rebel troops defiantly face an army-wide assault ordered by Grant that extends over three days.

Rhea gives a surprising new interpretation of the famous battle that left seven thousand Union casualties and only fifteen hundred Confederate dead or wounded. Here, Grant is not a callous butcher, and Lee does not wage a perfect fight. Every imaginable primary source has been exhausted to unravel the strategies, mistakes, gambles, and problems with subordinates that preoccupied two exquisitely matched minds.

“Through research and dramatic writing, Rhea early stamped himself as today’s premier historian of the Overland campaign.” – James I. Robertson, Jr.

Light adhesive remainder on rear of dust jacket; else near fine; signed.

Gordon C. Rhea. Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee: May 26 – June 3, 1864. Baton Rouge, LSU Press, 2002.