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Reviewed by:
  • Cold Harbor to the Crater: The End of the Overland Campaign ed. by Gary W. Gallagher, Caroline E. Janney
  • Jennifer M. Murray (bio)
Cold Harbor to the Crater: The End of the Overland Campaign. Edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Caroline E. Janney. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Pp. 360. Cloth, $35.00.)

Appearing nine years after the publication of The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 (2006), Gary Gallagher and Caroline Janney’s Cold Harbor to the Crater: The End of the Overland Campaign represents the tenth volume of the Military Campaigns of the Civil War series. This volume considers the Overland Campaign beyond the traditional closing date of June 12–15, 1864, to include the opening maneuvers at Petersburg. The ten essays, written by academic and public historians, several of whom were contributors to Gallagher’s earlier volumes, offer a dynamic engagement of one of the Civil War’s deadliest campaigns. Collectively these essays offer a compelling look at the campaign’s strategies, the harsh experiences of Union and Confederate soldiers, the impact of the campaign on the civilians, and the malleable role of the campaign in culture and memory.

Gallagher’s opening essay considers the reputations of Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Lee’s pre-1864 performance and reputation influenced how southerners responded to his strategy and the increasingly high casualty rates. While the number of casualties for the Army of Northern Virginia during the Overland campaign, at 24.5 percent of [End Page 619] the army, had become the norm for Lee’s success, the casualty rate within the Army of the Potomac, approximately 40 percent, had heretofore been uncommon. Additionally, Lee began the campaign with a slate of victories and the respect of the men within his army. Northern newspapers portrayed Lee as a worthy adversary. Grant, who came to command the Army of the Potomac in March 1864, never enjoyed such adoration of the men within his ranks. Southern newspapers labeled him a butcher, while northern newspapers and politicians challenged Grant’s methods.

Unlike earlier volumes in the series, Cold Harbor to the Crater highlights common soldiers. Robert E. L. Krick examines the reinforcements sent to Lee’s army in May and June 1864 and their efficacy during the campaign. In order to neutralize the reinforcements to Grant’s army and to restore Lee’s army to its strength before the Wilderness, the Confederate government furiously sought reinforcements. These efforts augmented Lee’s army with regiments, brigades, and divisions. Meanwhile, Kathryn Shively Meier addresses the means by which soldiers coped during the Overland campaign. She urges a shift in the focus from soldiers who could not cope toward those who persevered. These soldiers, who were a majority, found methods of enduring the emotional, psychological, and physical strains. Union and Confederate soldiers practiced “self-care techniques” that allowed them to deal with the range of stressors, including combat, the environment, food shortages, chronic illness, homesickness, and exhaustion.

In a more traditional military approach, Keith Bohannon explores the Confederate engineering operations and the construction and utilization of breastworks. Although soldiers become proficient in constructing breastworks, their hastily constructed nature often resulted in significant flaws. Confederate reinforcements often had minimal experience in constructing entrenchments, and without the necessary engineering oversight, soldiers created lines with significant weaknesses, as seen at the Mule Shoe salient at Spotsylvania and Edgar’s Salient at Cold Harbor.

Joan Waugh’s biographical essay offers an opportunity to view the campaign through the eyes of one particular soldier, Francis Channing Barlow. In evaluating both Barlow’s accounts and perspectives from his contemporaries, Waugh asserts that the “quality of Barlow’s generalship and the fighting skills of his men had declined markedly” (139). Critiques against his generalship, mounting casualties within his division, and the sudden death of his wife defined the final months of Barlow’s Civil War career.

Gordon Rhea offers a strategic perspective of Grant’s withdrawal from Cold Harbor. Rhea praises the disengagement from Cold Harbor and the crossing of the James River in its planning and execution, which ultimately placed the Union army at the outskirts of Petersburg. He criticizes the [End Page 620...

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