The Spotsylvania campaign

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. The authors draw on previously untapped manuscript sources and reinterpret more familiar ones, sometimes focusing closely on Spotsylvania and sometimes using it as a point of departure from which to consider broader issues. Readers will find insights into the decisions and behavior of Robert E. Lee and of Federal army leaders, the fullest descriptions to date of the horrific fighting at the "Bloody Angle" on May 12 and of "Jeb" Stuart's response to Philip H. Sheridan's cavalry raid toward Richmond, a careful analysis of how constant campaigning punctuated by brutal combat affected the military efficiency of the two armies, an examination of the ways in which one New Jersey regiment's postwar recollections of Spotsylvania differed from wartime reality, 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.