The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7-12, 1864

Rating:
Summary: Grant the Butcher
Review: Rhea's second installment on Grant's Overland Campaign of 1864 (Battle of the Wilderness was the first) is an improvement on its predecessor in many ways. The primary source research and grasp of complex and confusing troop movements and tactics is consistently well done. Unlike Rhea's previous effort, The Battles for Spotsylvania ... makes excellent use of reference material with appropriate timing and quantity to enhance the story telling and support the analysis of events and conclusions drawn. Rhea's attempt to portray the incredible horror and human devastation resulting from the twenty hours of continuous battle at the Bloody Angle is commendable in its intensity and conviction, even though we realize that attempts to convey or describe, however accurately, can never approach the reality. Even the direct participants of this conflict were loathe to return to the subject and unable to conjure in words what had been forever burned into their nightmares. Overall, ! this book is an excellent account of this important battle. Rhea identifies the strengths and weaknesses of Grant's campaign. The unconscionable attack at Cold Harbor, made worse by Grant's refusal to ask for truce to tend to his suffering wounded out of concern for his personal reputation, is explained here in advance. Grant continued his tendency to push to the attack in all circumstances without ever taking the time to survey the field dispositions of his own and Lee's troops. Unlike Sherman in the West, who chose maneuver over pointless head-on attacks in order to gain ground against a badly out-numbered opponent, Grant preferred the meat-grinder approach, fighting Lincoln's war of statistical attrition. "Grant the Butcher" indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Required reading
Review: The maps are great, the prose is clear, the research is superb. What else do you want? Fully one third of the book is notes and appendices, which tells of a good and thorough historian. I respect that. I live about six miles from Spotsylvania Court House, so I wanted a definitive guide to the battle; this was it!

Rating:
Summary: incredible, exciting drama of the horrors of Spotsylvania
Review: This book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the battle of Spotsylvania. Mr. Rhea does an incredible job of making the reader understand this most brutal encounter. He describes with terrific detail the thoughts of both commanders, and the carnage of the salient. I couldn't believe I was so moved from reading a history book. Thank you Mr.Rhea for your hard work!!!

Rating:
Summary: Grant Vrs. Lee Part II. Spotsylvania clarified
Review: This is an excellent book. Good endnotes; good maps; good Corps lists for Rebels and Yankees. The index could be a little better, like for looking up regiments.

Rhea is an excellent writer, not dry reading and there is a lot more info than you will ever get watching the CW on TV redundant stuff.

I understand he is writing another book that will pick up where this one left off, probably Cold Harbor, and then hopefully he'll do one on 1865. You get the main idea of Grant Vrs.Lee, it shows how both generals constantly adjusted. It may have a slight Southern bias, brilliant Lee vrs Grant the Butcher.

Rhea tells about Burnside being a goat in yet another battle. But who in the heck failed Upton the most?

Rating:
Summary: Spotsylvania/Yellow Tavern
Review: This is an excellent study of what must be one of the most horrific among Civil War battles. Though one reviewer's comments about sloppy notation are well taken, Rhea's scholarship overall seems solid, and he uses quotes to great effect to make the fighting come alive.

Not only Spotsylvania but the tragic cavalry battle at Yellow Tavern are covered here. Relevant to this, no other study I have seen, not even bios of Stuart, brings out Stuart and his troopers' role in initially forming the crucial defensive line on Laurel Hill and then deploying the infantry in ideal positions. Little known, but perhaps one of Stuart's finest hours.

Rhea seems even-handed ideologically speaking, and his criticisms of Grant and Sheridan seem well supported by the facts. I would recommend this book not only to scholars but to amateurs who want to know why the Civil War was a horrible conflict. This is not light reading. It is a story of appalling human suffering, courage, and unbelievable sheer endurance.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Civil War Book of 1997
Review: With the year only four-and-a-half months young, it would still be a safe bet to put your money on Gordon C. Rhea's "The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern-May 7-12, 1864" for "Best Civil War Book of 1997". Rhea, who gave us his "Battle of the Wilderness" in 1994, has only improved upon that award-winning volume with his latest effort. "The Battles for Spotsylvania" covers the vicious and nearly-disastrous engagement between Grant and Lee during the middle weeks of May, 1864. Here, near this sleepy little village southwest of Fredericksburg, Grant's bluecoats met Lee's butternuts in a mortal maelstrom of some of the most bloody fighting the Old Dominion had yet seen. Long neglected by Civil War writers, this pivotal and oft-confusing series of continuous combats was brought to the modern Civil War buff's attention by William Matter's fine "If It Takes All Summer" in 1988. Rhea, however, takes the torch from here and weaves a masterful narrative, both highly-detailed and smooth flowing at once, to give us, perhaps, the best coverage of this engagement we shall ever have. How so, one might ask? First, Rhea adds to the records and histories, a plethora of unpublished accounts from diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers, and the like to give this book the comprehensive personal side of battle. Yet, the strategic and tactical concerns of the fighting do not suffer at all. To be sure, the author, once again, has found that special touch in blending the larger and smaller "pictures" into one without detracting from either. Nearly every imaginable aspect of the battle is covered in deft fashion, always maintaining the easy-reading flow in the text. Especially inviting to buffs and important to historians is Rhea's coverage of the concurrent cavalry operations between Phil Sheridan and JEB Stuart, including a riveting account of "Little Phil's" Richmond Raid and Stuart's subsequent death at Yellow Tavern. From the initial fighting at Laurel Hill, through Upton's heroic charge and the battering assaults against the "Bloody Angle", the reader will find and feel that they are seemingly in the midst of the battle itself. I just got my copy and read it in two days--you will find this one very hard to put down! Theodore C. Mahr Dayton, Ohio ------------------------------------------------ Former Seasonal Historian Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania Natl. Military Park Author: "The Battle of Cedar Creek: Showdown in the Shenandoah, October 1-30, 1864"[1992]