The Killing Ground: Wilderness to Cold Harbor (The Civil War)

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Summary: Grant begins the end game of the Civil War with Lee
Review: "The Killing Ground: Wilderness to Cold Harbor" is the volume in the Time-Life series on The Civil War that covers the first stage of the final advance on Richmond. This volume by Gregory Jaynes begins in March 1864 when General Ulysses S. Grant was ordered to assume command of all the Union armies and came east. Grant Takes Charge sets the stage for the final but prolonged act of the war by considering the military and political situations. The chapter looks at the initial skirmishes between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia in early 1864 and has a illustrated section on Sketching the Common Solider featuring the work of Edwin Forbes, an artist for Leslie's "Illustrated Newspaper."

The rest of "The Killing Ground" details the series of battles by which Grant advanced on Richmond. Into the Wilderness covers the first half of the horrific battle of the Wilderness. The battle concludes in A Slaughter at the Crossroads with the pivotal moment in the war when Grant ordered the Union army to continue to press on toward Richmond rather than withdraw. Contest on the North Anna continues the flanking movements as Grant shifted his troops south and Lee countered with moves to the east. To Die at Cold Harbor provides a fitting end to the book with the biggest mistake Grant made in his military career, that of ordering the final bloody assault at Cold Harbor.

One of the aspects of this book that I liked was Jaynes' constant practice of including actual quotations from Grant (I assume many of them come from his celebrated "Memoirs"). This practice gives the narrative a human dimension, which works on the readers much as it must have done on Federal troops in 1864, by countering the mystique of Robert E. Lee. These books are richly illustrated with historic photographs, etchings, drawings, and paintings, as well as maps of the key engagements. Some of these illustrations are quite well known (e.g., the series of photographs of Grant's war council at a churchyard at Massaponax Church), but even if you are an ardent student of the Civil War I think you will find something new to look at in this book. Beyond the illustrations the chief strength of "The Killing Ground" is to detail the battles from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor. The end game of the war continues in "Death in the Trenches: Grant at Petersburg" and finishes in "Pursuit to Appomattox" The Last Battles."