Hurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor, May 26

Hurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor, May 26 - June 5, 1864 (Emerging Civil War Series)

â€œLeeâ€™s army is really whipped,â€ Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant believed.

May 1864 had witnessed near-constant combat between his Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Grant, unlike his predecessors, had not relented in his pounding of the Confederates. The armies clashed in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Courthouse and along the North Anna River. Whenever combat failed to break the Confederates, Grant resorted to maneuver. â€œI propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer,â€ Grant vowedâ€”and it had.

Casualties mounted on both sidesâ€”but Grant kept coming. Although the great, decisive assault had eluded him, he continued to punish Leeâ€™s army. The blows his army landed were nothing like the Confederates had experienced before. The constant marching and fighting had reduced Robert E. Leeâ€™s once-vaunted army into a bedraggled husk of its former glory.

In Grantâ€™s mind, he had worn his foes down and now prepared to deliver the deathblow.

Turning Leeâ€™s flank once more, he hoped to fight the final, decisive battle of the war in the area bordering the Pamunkey and Chickahominy rivers, less than fifteen miles from the outskirts of the Confederate capital of Richmond. â€œI may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over Leeâ€™s army is already assured,â€ Grant confided to Washington.

The stakes had grown enormous. Grantâ€™s staggering casualty lists had driven Northern morale to his lowest point of the war. Would Leeâ€™s men hold on to defend their besieged capitalâ€”and, in doing so, prolong the war until the North will collapsed entirely? Or would another round of hard fighting finally be enough to crush Leeâ€™s army? Could Grant push through and end the war?

Grant would find his answers around a small Virginia crossroads called Cold Harborâ€”and he would always regret the results.

Historians Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt have studied the 1864 Overland Campaign since their early days working at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, where Grant first started on his bloody road southâ€”a road that eventually led straight into the eye of a proverbial â€œHurricane from the Heavens.

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Hurricane from the Heavens can be read in the comfort of oneâ€™s favorite armchair or as a battlefield guide. It is part of the popular Emerging Civil War Series, which offers compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil Warâ€™s most important stories. The masterful storytelling is richly enhanced with more than one hundred photos, illustrations, and maps.
Country USA
Manufacturer Savas Beatie
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2014-05-19
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Savas Beatie
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2014-05-19
Format	Kindle eBook

Hurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor, May 26 - June 5, 1864 (Emerging Civil War Series)

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