Gordon C. Rhea is also the author of Carrying the Flag: The Story of Private Charles Whilden, the Confederacy's Most Unlikely Hero; The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, May 7--12, 1864; To the North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13--25, 1864, winner of the Fletcher Pratt Literary Award; and Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26--June 3, 1864, winner of the Austin Civil War Round Table's Laney Prize; and In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee: The Wilderness through Cold Harbor. He lives in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.
Rhea, a Virginia attorney, offers what will likely become the
definitive account of one of the Civil War's most confusing
engagements: the Battle of the Wilderness, the first encounter
between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, fought in Virginia. The
author's reconstruction of the fighting highlights the difficulties
of controlling troops once they had been committed to action.
Grant's original plan was to maneuver Lee out of his defensive
position along the Rapidan River, then crush his troops with
superior numbers. Instead, Rhea notes, the Wilderness became a
"soldiers' battle," with raw courage compensating for inadequate
generalship on both sides. Grant relied too heavily on the Army of
the Potomac's commander, George Gordon Meade, who failed to
coordinate the movements of subordinates disoriented by the broken
ground they fought over. Rhea also criticizes Lee for consistently
taking the offensive with an army that could not afford the major
losses it sustained in attacking. History Book Club main
selection.-- "Publishers Weekly"
Fought in a dense woods, the Battle of the Wilderness was the first
clash between Grant and Lee. Two days of close-quarters fighting
ignited the woods and trebled the casualty list with no advantage
to either side; Lee stalemated Grant's superior force. Historian
Rhea's revisionist history considers the Wilderness a Union
victory. The author questions Lee's reputation as a brilliant
strategist while praising Grant for a well-conceived battle plan.
Personalities aside, the battle of attrition that would win the war
had begun. Powerfully written, mingling official histories with
diaries and letters, this study is filled with dramatic tension. As
written by Rhea, the Battle of the Wilderness underscores how the
Confederacy won many battles but lost the war. Strongly recommended
for academic and public collections.-- "Library Journal"
In a meticulous, exhaustive, yet highly readable account, Thomas
has done for the Battle of the Wilderness what others have done for
Gettysburg, Antietam, and other Civil War battles. Rhea, an
attorney and Civil War buff, gives clear historical treatment to
one of the major engagements of the Civil War, the first important
battle directed by Ulysses S. Grant after his appointment as
general-in-chief of the Federal army. In the tangled, thicketed
Virginia forest region south of the Rapidan River, Grant's force of
approximately 120,000 was opposed by 65,000 men under the command
of Robert E. Lee. The Union push was to be the beginning of Grant's
campaign to capture Richmond, the Confederate capital. Though his
army outnumbered Lee's by almost two to one, Grant met with stiff
resistance, and the dense woods made fighting almost impossible. In
the end, after both sides suffered heavy casualties, the battle was
indecisive. Rhea views the engagement in the context of the
increasingly desperate Southern situation in mid-1864 as resources
became ever more scarce. He also relates the story of an important,
little-known precursor to the battle: a disastrous foray by Federal
troops against entrenched Confederates at Morton's Ford on the
Rapidan in February of the same year. His narrative brings to life
not only Grant, Lee, and James Longstreet, but also lesser known
figures like ``Brains'' Halleck (Grant's predecessor as commander)
and Gen. John Sedgwick (who commanded the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry
in the Wilderness and had previously, against his better judgment,
commanded the attack at Morton's Ford). An extremely helpful
appendix contains the complete order of battle for both sides. All
future accounts of the battle will be measured against this work.
Scholars and buffs alike will find the volume enthralling. (History
Book Club main selection)-- "Kirkus Reviews"
This is the latest entry in the new category of
regiment-by-regiment accountings of major Civil War battles,
products made possible not just by revived interest in the conflict
but by the rise of a new generation of Civil War historians able to
research with the aid of computer databases. It's a well-written,
absorbing, though decidedly bloody tally of the opening battle of
the 1864 campaign in Virginia. The Confederate Army of Northern
Virginia extricated itself several times from the jaws of disaster,
while the Union Army of the Potomac slogged to a tactical draw that
was turned into a strategic victory by Grant's refusal to retreat.
As portrayed in these pages, the battle reflects much credit on the
soldiers and somewhat less on most of the generals but certainly
deserves the full coverage this massive volume affords. This main
selection of the History Book Club is indeed a valuable addition to
Civil War collections.--Roland Green "Booklist"
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