Marching to Cold Harbor: Victory and Failure, 1864 (review)

336CIVIL WAR HISTORY Yet the papers, many penned to Walker's wife over a period of eighteen years, are extensive and revealing about the general. They enabled Brown to craft an arresting and worthwhile life of the native Georgian who sought glory and honor through the military. Clearly Walker was not always "the Georgia firebrand " whose face was "lit by the gleam of battle" (xiii) and who "quarreled with anyone over anything" (295). Brown concludes that Walker was "a real human being" (xiii), a man who smoked cigars, liked to eat fried chicken, enjoyed Catawba wine, loved to dance (especially waltzes and polkas), worried about his wife being alone while he was away, and cared deeply for his children. Furthermore, his desire for glory and honor in the army was well realized in two wars, the Seminole and the Mexican, in both of which he was wounded and nearly died but recovered and returned home to renown as a military hero. But when all is said that may be said about Walker's good qualities, the negative ones are still pronounced. The author does not attempt to gloss over this fact, stating for instance that Walker "allowed no challenge to his opinions or inference of dishonor to go unnoticed" (295). He also points out how Walker frequently quarreled with his wife's brothers and even members of his own family. Walker's belief in the superiority of the Southern white male, says Brown, bordered on fanaticism. Also, he had little patience and a very bad temper. The explanations for his actions are multiple: he was a product of the class and region into which he was born; his early education was very limited, causing him to rely on emotion rather than reason; and his health was bad. Particularly, Brown makes a compelling case for the impact of Walker's longtime struggle against asthma and the pain of his wounds, for which he took laudanum and inhaled ether, as affecting his behavior. Surely it must have. Still, one wonders if there was not a streak of meanness in the man from the first. However this may have been, Brown has given us an insightful and valuable study of a Georgia general. This is a biography that is sure to be of interest to anyone who "follows" the American Civil War. James L. McDonough Auburn University Marching to Cold Harbor: Victory and Failure, 1864. By R. Wayne Maney. (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Publishing Company, 1995. Pp. 270. $29.95.) Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's 1 864 overland campaign proved to be the bloodiest of the Civil War. There have been numerous studies of the campaign, as well as of the battles fought at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. But the final tragic clash at Cold Harbor has never been examined in detail as a separate battle. In Marching to ColdHarbor, R. Wayne Maney attempts to remedy this oversight. After the enormous bloodletting at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and North Anna River, Grant's advance on Richmond was still blocked by Robert E. Lee's BOOK REVIEWS337 battered Army of Northern Virginia. To break the stalemate, Grant attempted one last maneuver to slip around Lee's right flank and position the Army of the Potomac between the Rebels and their capital. To accomplish this, he had to seize the hamlet of Cold Harbor, a few miles northeast of Richmond. Cold Harbor was the last crossroads that allowed Grant a direct route from his supply base on the Pamunkey River to Richmond. On June i, 1864, lead elements of the Army of the Potomac reached Cold Harbor, only to find Lee blocking the way. Heavy fighting erupted that afternoon , but Grant was unable to punch through the Confederate defenses. A second attack was ordered for June 2, but poor maps and exhaustion forced the assault to be postponed until June 3. By then Lee's veterans were well entrenched and the advancing Union troops were slaughtered by artillery and rifle fire. In twenty minutes Grant lost approximately six thousand men. This tragedy was compounded by Grant's refusal to ask for a timely truce to collect his wounded. By the time a truce was worked out...