If It Takes All Summer: The Battle of Spotsylvania (review)

262CIVIL WAR HISTORY the rewarding labors of Carol Bleser this remarkable document is available to all who seeka candid but forbidding portrait ofa man and a slave society wrestling with pride, arrogance, and what almost seems to be a death wish. Bertram Wyatt-Brown University of Florida IfIt Takes AUSummer: The Battle ofSpotsylvania. By William D. Matter. (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1988. Pp. xv, 455. $29.95.) Surprisingly, after well over one hundred years and countless thousands of books, there are still major campaigns and battles of the Civil War that have not received comprehensive, scholarly treatment. Instead, these campaigns and battles have been covered anecdotally in reminiscences or superficially as part of larger works. Errors and special pleadings abound in the first category, and in the absence of critical analysis, they often find their way into the second. Until every major campaign and battle is scrutinized in a monograph utilizingall the resources and analytical tools modern scholarship can provide, generalizations on the military aspects ofthe war will remain suspect. Especially is this true of the Overland Campaign of 1864 in Virginia where stereotypes and half-truths prevail in the absence of solid works on all but one ofthe major encounters between Grant and Lee. Clearly the war in Virginia in 1864 differed greatly from that of previous years, but the reasons remain elusive because the monographic foundation upon which to build generalizations remains incomplete. William D. Matter has now contributed significantly to that foundation with the publication of IfIt Takes All Summer: The Battle ofSpotsylvania. Following the bloody but indecisive clash in the Wilderness, U. S. Grant elected to continue offensive operations in a southeasterly direction toward Richmond. Grant's initial objective was Spotsylvania Court House, which he hoped to reach before the Army ofNorthern Virginia could react. Philip Sheridan's incompetent performance and other factors, however, permitted Robert E. Lee to win the race to Spotsylvania. From the point ofinitial contact near the Spindle farm, both armies extended their lines for several miles through the maze of fields, woods, ravines, and small streams. For two weeks Grant tested the Confederate entrenchments, leapfrogging corps over one another as the action shifted from right to left, and then back again. All attempts to gain a decisive breakthrough failed, although a notable penetration occurred on May 12 at the salient known thenceforth as the Bloody Angle. In this action so many bullets were fired at such close quarters for so long that bodies of the fallen were reduced to unrecognizable pulp and an oak tree twenty inches in diameter was felled. But it was all BOOK REVIEWS263 for nothing as Lee's counterattacks boughtenough time for his engineers to construct a new line that eliminated the salient. Finally, after another nine days of indecisive maneuvering and bungled attacks by both sides, Grant again broke contact with Lee's army and headed south once more. Although the horrors of the fight at the Bloody Angle have long been a staple of writings about the Overland Campaign, no comprehensive treatment ofthe Spotsylvania action has been available until the publication of IfIt Takes All Summer. Matter begins his story at the close of the Wilderness battle and carries it forward in great detail until both armies have left Spotsylvania on their way to their next confrontation at North Anna River. Under the best of circumstances it is a complex story because of the broken terrain and the constant shifting of units by both armies from one flank to the other. Matter compounds the complexity by emphasizing the details of daily movement: order of units in column, route of march, distance to be covered, road condition, etc. These homely details provide a much needed corrective to the grand assertions ofthose unfamiliar with the procedures and physical limitations of campaigning. Military historians must understand such parameters or their work will be uninformed and irrelevant. Handled injudiciously, however, such detailed recitation offact may detrimentally affect both writing style and focus. Commendable as it is, Matter's decision to lead the reader through the minutiae of operations has resulted in a writing style often as turgid as the Spotsylvania mud itself. More important, the book's...