A history of the series of American Civil War battles fought at a town outside of Richmond, Virginia.Robert E. Lee feared the day the Union army would return up the James River and invest the Confederate capital of Richmond. In the spring of 1864, Ulysses Grant, looking for a way to weaken Lee, was about to exploit the Confederate commander's greatest fear and weakness. After two years of futile offensives in Virginia, the Union commander set the stage for a campaig...

Long overshadowed by the American Civil War, the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) has received significantly less attention from historians partly because of its questionable origin and controversial outcome. Rather than treat the conflict with a form of historical amnesia, the contributors to this volume argue that the Mexican-American War was a formative experience for the more than three hundred future Civil War generals who served in it as lower-grade officers. The Mexican War was the ...

Grant presses a desperate push against Petersburg, mixing strategic maneuver with faltering hopes for victory.After the first attempt to storm Petersburg failed on June 15–18, 1864, Ulysses S. Grant decided to try again. War weariness grew in the North. Gold shot up in price. Radical Republicans schemed to replace Abraham Lincoln. The Democrats delayed their nominating convention, confident that Grant would be no nearer to victory. With Atlanta still in Confederate...

A concise history and analysis of the 1864 American Civil War battle that marked the end for the Army of Tennessee."A well-researched and informative read, Chick's study of the Nashville campaign is a must for anyone seeking to learn more about this often-overlooked battle, as well as those interested in the war in the Western Theatre and generalship in the Civil War."— The NYMAS ReviewThe November 1864 battle of F...

The Battle of Petersburg was the culmination of the Virginia Overland campaign, which pitted the Army of the Potomac, led by Ulysses S. Grant and George Gordon Meade, against Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In spite of having outmaneuvered Lee, after three days of battle in which the Confederates at Petersburg were severely outnumbered, Union forces failed to take the city, and their final, futile attack on the fourth day only added to already staggering casualties. By holding P...

“The concise recap of the battle includes the strategy, missed opportunities, anecdotes about individual actions, and challenges of fighting in the woods. It's a nice addition to the series.” -Historical Miniatures Gaming SocietyAfter taking Forts Henry and Donelson, the Union army prepared to try and take the vital rail hub of Corinth, Mississippi. To facilitate this, Major General H. Halleck planned to combine Grant’s Army of West Tennessee with Buell’s Army of t...

"Chick does a good job of portraying [General Beauregard] as the first real hero of the Confederacy, who at times proved his own worst enemy." — The NYMAS ReviewFew Civil War generals attracted as much debate and controversy as Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard. He combined brilliance and charisma with arrogance and histrionics. He was a Catholic Creole in a society dominated by white Protestants, which made him appear exotic next to the likes of Albert Sid...

The Battle of Petersburg’s intense four-day clash marked a missed Union opportunity, prolonging the Civil War with dramatic consequences.May and June 1864 in Virginia witnessed some of the most brutal and bloody fighting of the Civil War. Combined losses for the two armies after the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, and Cold Harbor exceeded 80,000 killed, wounded, and captured. The result? A stalemate outside Richmond.The carnage notwithstan...

On 4 April 1862, Major General George McClellan marched his 121,500-strong Army of the Potomac from Fort Monroe toward Richmond. Blocking his path were Major General John B. Magruder's Warwick-Yorktown Line fortifications and the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia. Despite outnumbering Magruder almost four to one, McClellan was tricked by Magruder's bluff of strength and halted his advance. Yorktown, the scene of Washington's 1781 victory over Cornwallis, was once again besieged. It was the...

More than 100 true stories of comrade killing comrade:defective ammunitionaccidental shootingsblinding smokedeliberate fire upon comrademistaken uniformsinexperienced troopsunknown passwordsOn May 2, 1863, Stonewall Jackson was on the verge of the greatest victory of his career. Shortly before 10 P.M. he rode through the woods near Chancellorsville, Virginia, to find where the Federals had established ...

"Explores the first phase of General William Tecumseh Sherman's Atlanta Campaign in the summer of 1864 . . . Clear and concise" ( The Civil War Monitor).Poised on the edge of Georgia for the first time in the war, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, newly elevated to command the Union's western armies, eyed Atlanta covetously—the South's last great untouched prize. "Get into the interior of the enemy's country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can...

**Winner of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military HistoryAn Economist Best Book of the YearA Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year**The Battle of Gettysburg has been written about at length and thoroughly dissected in terms of strategic importance, but never before has a book taken readers so close to the experience of the individual soldier.Two-time Lincoln Prize winner Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights and the sou...