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Confederate Army Order of Battle
Army of Northern Virginia
Key
Military Rank
Gen = General
LTG = Lieutenant General
MG = Major
General
BG = Brigadier General
Col = Colonel
Ltc = Lieutenant Colonel
Maj = Major
Cpt = Captain
Lt = Lieutenant
Other
w = wounded
mw = mortally wounded
k = killed
c = capture
References: Rhea, Gordon C. The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern May 7-12,
1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997; ----. To The North Anna River: Grant and Lee May 13-15, 1864. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
Recommended Reading:
The Battles For Spotsylvania Court House And The
Road To Yellow Tavern, May 7-12, 1864. Description: The second volume in
Gordon C. Rhea's peerless five-book series on the Civil War's 1864 Overland Campaign abounds with Rhea's signature detail,
innovative analysis, and riveting prose. Here Rhea examines the maneuvers and battles from May 7, 1864, when Grant left the
Wilderness, through May 12, when his attempt to break Lee's line by frontal assault reached a chilling climax at what is now
called the Bloody Angle. Drawing exhaustively upon previously untapped materials, Rhea challenges conventional wisdom about
this violent clash of titans to construct the ultimate account of Grant and Lee at Spotsylvania.
Continued below…
About
the Author: Gordon C. Rhea is also the author of The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5–6, 1864; To the
North Anna River: Grant and Lee, May 13–25, 1864, winner of the Fletcher Pratt Literary Award; Cold Harbor: Grant and
Lee, May 26–June 3, 1864, winner of the Austin Civil War Round Table’s Laney Prize, and Carrying the Flag: The
Story of Private Charles Whilden, the Confederacy’s Most Unlikely Hero. He lives in St. Croix, U.S.
Virgin Islands, and in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina,
with his wife and two sons.
Advance to:
Recommended
Reading: To the North
Anna River: Grant And Lee, May
13-25, 1864 (Jules and Frances Landry Award Series).
Description: With To the North Anna River, the third book in his outstanding five-book series, Gordon
C. Rhea continues his spectacular narrative of the initial campaign between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in the spring
of 1864. May 13 through 25, a phase oddly ignored by historians, was critical in the clash between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. During those thirteen days—an interlude bracketed by
horrific battles that riveted the public’s attention—a game of guile and endurance between Grant and Lee escalated
to a suspenseful draw on Virginia’s North
Anna River. Continued below...
From the bloodstained
fields of the Mule Shoe to the North Anna River, with Meadow Bridge, Myers Hill, Harris Farm, Jericho Mills, Ox Ford, and
Doswell Farm in between, grueling night marches, desperate attacks, and thundering cavalry charges became the norm for both
Grant’s and Lee’s men. But the real story of May 13–25 lay in the two generals’ efforts to outfox
each other, and Rhea charts their every step and misstep. Realizing that his bludgeoning tactics at the Bloody Angle were
ineffective, Grant resorted to a fast-paced assault on Lee’s vulnerable points. Lee, outnumbered two to one, abandoned
the offensive and concentrated on anticipating Grant’s maneuvers and shifting quickly enough to repel them. It was an
amazingly equal match of wits that produced a gripping, high-stakes bout of warfare—a test, ultimately, of improvisation
for Lee and of perseverance for Grant.
Recommended
Reading: The Spotsylvania
Campaign: May 7-21, 1864 (Great Campaigns). Description:
A very detailed examination of the Spotsylvania Campaign. A dramatic study of the campaign and the clash of the titans - Robert
E. Lee against Ulysses S. Grant – and it is a book that you will refuse to put down. Continued below…
About
the Author: John Cannan has established
a reputation among Civil War writers in a remarkably short time. His distinctions include three books selected by the Military
Book Club. He is the author of The Atlanta Campaign, The Wilderness Campaign, and The Spotsylvania Campaign. Cannan is an
historic preservation attorney residing in Baltimore.
Recommended
Reading: The Spotsylvania Campaign (Military Campaigns of the
Civil War) (Hardcover). Description: The Spotsylvania Campaign marked a crucial period in the confrontation
between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in Virginia.
Waged over a two-week period in mid-May 1864, it included some of the most savage fighting of the Civil War and left indelible
marks on all involved. Approaching topics related to Spotsylvania from a variety of perspectives,
the contributors to this volume explore questions regarding high command, tactics and strategy, the impact of fighting on
officers and soldiers in both armies, and the ways in which some participants chose to remember and interpret the campaign.
They offer insight into the decisions and behavior of Lee and of Federal army leaders, the fullest descriptions to date of
the horrific fighting at the "Bloody Angle" on May 12, and a revealing look at how Grant used his memoirs to offset Lost Cause
interpretations of his actions at Spotsylvania and elsewhere in the Overland Campaign. Continued
below...
Meet the Contributors:
—William
A. Blair, Grant's Second Civil War: The Battle for Historical Memory
—Peter S. Carmichael, We Respect a Good
Soldier, No Matter What Flag He Fought Under: The 15th New Jersey Remembers Spotsylvania
—Gary W. Gallagher, I Have
to Make the Best of What I Have: Robert E. Lee at Spotsylvania
—Robert E. L. Krick, Stuart's Last Ride: A Confederate
View of Sheridan's Raid
—Robert K. Krick, An Insurmountable Barrier between the Army and Ruin: The Confederate Experience
at Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle
—William D. Matter, The Federal High Command at Spotsylvania
—Carol Reardon,
A Hard Road to Travel: The Impact of Continuous Operations on the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia in
May 1864
—Gordon C. Rhea, The Testing of a Corp Commander: Gouverneur Kemble Warren at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania
Recommended
Reading: If It Takes All Summer: The Battle
of Spotsylvania
(Hardcover). Description: The termination of the war and the fate of the Union hung in the
balance in May of 1864 as Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Ulysses S. Grant's Army of the Potomac clashed in
the Virginia countryside—first in the battle of the Wilderness, where the Federal army sustained greater losses than
at Chancellorsville, and then further south in the vicinity of Spotsylvania Courthouse, where Grant sought to cut Lee's troops
off from the Confederate capital of Richmond. This is the first book-length examination of the pivotal Spotsylvania
campaign of 7-21 May. Continued below...
Drawing on
extensive research in manuscript collections across the country and an exhaustive reading of the available literature, William
Matter sets the strategic stage for the campaign before turning to a detailed description of tactical movements. He offers
abundant fresh material on race from the Wilderness to Spotsylvania, the role of Federal and Confederate cavalry, Emory Upton's
brilliantly conceived Union assault on 10 May, and the bitter clash on 19 May at the Harris farm. Throughout the book, Matter
assesses each side's successes, failures, and lost opportunities and sketches portraits of the principal commanders. The centerpiece
of the narrative is a meticulous and dramatic treatment of the horrific encounter in the salient that formed the Confederate
center on 12 May. There the campaign reached its crisis, as soldiers waged perhaps the longest and most desperate fight of
the entire war for possession of the Bloody Angle—a fight so savage that trees were literally shot to pieces by musket
fire. Matter's sure command of a mass of often-conflicting testimony enables him to present by far the clearest account to
date of this immensely complex phase of the battle. Rigorously researched, effectively presented, and well supported by maps,
this book is a model tactical study that accords long overdue attention to the Spotsylvania campaign. It will quickly take its place in the front rank of military studies
of the Civil War.
Recommended
Reading: Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign (Civil War America)
(Hardcover). Description: In the study of field fortifications in the Civil War that began with Field Armies
and Fortifications in the Civil War, Hess turns to the 1864 Overland campaign to cover battles from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor. Drawing on meticulous research in primary sources and careful examination of trench remnants
at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor, and Bermuda Hundred, Hess describes Union
and Confederate earthworks and how Grant and Lee used them in this new era of field entrenchments.
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