Rating: 
Summary: Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee May 26 - June 3, 1864
Review: Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee May 26 - June 3, 1864 written by Gordon C. Rhea is a well-researched and written account of what really happened in this part of the Overland Campaign as for the first time Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee go head to head with their respective armies.Rhea gives the reader a surprising new interpretation of the famous battle the left 7,000 Union casualties and only 1,500 for Confederates. Contrary to the image urged by Grant's detractors, the general's campaign agaisst Lee reveals a warrioe every bit as talented as his famous Confederate counterpart. Grnt's and Lee's battles spawned persistent legends almost as farfetched as the parodies of the generals themselves. This book puts aside the rumors and deals with the factual accout of the battles of Cold Harbor. The Cold Harbor in these pages differs sharply from the Cold Harbor of popular lore. Grant is not an unthinking automaton shoveling bodies into the maw of Lee's earthworks. And Lee does not fight a perfect battle. Grant begins the campaign by executing one of his best moves, pulling his army across the North Anna and stealing a march on Lee. Discovering Grant's deception, Lee takes up a strong defensive line along the Totopotomoy Creek, countering the Union ploy. Grant send out feelers, and Lee responds, sparking battles across woods and fields northeast of Richmond. By accident rather than by design, the military center of gravity shifts to an obscure Virginia crossroads called Old Cold Harbor. Lee's line seems stretched thin. The rebel army, its back to a river and on its last legs by Grant's reconing, dediantly faces the Federals. Grant sense a chance, a long shot perhaps, to end the war and orders an army-wide assault. This is, in a nutshell, what happens, but the narrative is about Grant's Cold Harbor offensive and the events leading up to the major attack on June 3, 1864. It is a campaign study about commanders and armies. The cavalry battles at Haw's Shop, Metadequin Creek, Hanover Court House, and Ashland, the infantry fights at Totopotomoy Creek and Bethesda Church, and even the big assults of June 1 and 3 at Cold Harbor are all in here as we read on in the book. This is the fourth book in the author's Overland Series and the first that we see Grant pitted with his counter part Lee making for a throughly researched and dramatic tale. Every imaginable primary sourse has been used making the strategies, mistakes, gmbles, and problems with subordinates all come to life... giving the reader a presence. This volume is worthy of a place on your library shelf for the American Civil War.
Rating:
Summary: Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee May 26 - June 3, 1864
Review: Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee May 26 - June 3, 1864 written by Gordon C. Rhea is a well-researched and written account of what really happened in this part of the Overland Campaign as for the first time Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee go head to head with their respective armies. Rhea gives the reader a surprising new interpretation of the famous battle the left 7,000 Union casualties and only 1,500 for Confederates. Contrary to the image urged by Grant's detractors, the general's campaign agaisst Lee reveals a warrioe every bit as talented as his famous Confederate counterpart. Grnt's and Lee's battles spawned persistent legends almost as farfetched as the parodies of the generals themselves. This book puts aside the rumors and deals with the factual accout of the battles of Cold Harbor. The Cold Harbor in these pages differs sharply from the Cold Harbor of popular lore. Grant is not an unthinking automaton shoveling bodies into the maw of Lee's earthworks. And Lee does not fight a perfect battle. Grant begins the campaign by executing one of his best moves, pulling his army across the North Anna and stealing a march on Lee. Discovering Grant's deception, Lee takes up a strong defensive line along the Totopotomoy Creek, countering the Union ploy. Grant send out feelers, and Lee responds, sparking battles across woods and fields northeast of Richmond. By accident rather than by design, the military center of gravity shifts to an obscure Virginia crossroads called Old Cold Harbor. Lee's line seems stretched thin. The rebel army, its back to a river and on its last legs by Grant's reconing, dediantly faces the Federals. Grant sense a chance, a long shot perhaps, to end the war and orders an army-wide assault. This is, in a nutshell, what happens, but the narrative is about Grant's Cold Harbor offensive and the events leading up to the major attack on June 3, 1864. It is a campaign study about commanders and armies. The cavalry battles at Haw's Shop, Metadequin Creek, Hanover Court House, and Ashland, the infantry fights at Totopotomoy Creek and Bethesda Church, and even the big assults of June 1 and 3 at Cold Harbor are all in here as we read on in the book. This is the fourth book in the author's Overland Series and the first that we see Grant pitted with his counter part Lee making for a throughly researched and dramatic tale. Every imaginable primary sourse has been used making the strategies, mistakes, gmbles, and problems with subordinates all come to life... giving the reader a presence. This volume is worthy of a place on your library shelf for the American Civil War.
Rating: 
Summary: A Stand-Up Fight in an Open Field Against an Intrenched Foe
Review: Gordon C. Rhea marshals an impressive mass of detail about the events between Ulysses S Grant's movement from the lines on the North Anna River to the end of the Battle of Cold Harbor proper on June 3, 1864. I have heard many of the opinions about the battle ranging from the judgment of Grant as an unfeeling butcher on a large scale to Rhea's revisionist approach, which puts the casualties into some perspective for the campaign and the war as a whole. The title of my review, which comes from a quote by Lt Col Charles Cummings of the 17th Vermont, is a good description of the main battle. Cold Harbor looks forward to the grim battle lines of the First World War, where men dug in and ventured from their trenches at their peril. As the war went on, the veteran troops on both sides learned to dig in. It was the gung-ho new regiments from the North that had the heaviest casualties: They had not yet developed the basic survival skills. Rhea's study went in for such heavy detail that at times, I yearned for an occasional editorial perspective, which this author pretty much restricted to the first and last chapters. Robert E Lee came out relatively unsinged from Cold Harbor, but Grant has taken much of the blame for the unfortunate general staff culture of the Army of the Potomac. Remember that it was only a short time before that he took over the command, and he had to make do with prima donnas like Meade -- who comes off particularly badly -- as well as Burnside, Warren, and Wright. Even Baldy Smith, Grant's friend whom he had rescued from the country club atmosphere of Butler's command at Bermuda Hundred, spent most of the time (though somewhat justifiably) complaining about lack of food and ammunition, and contradictory commands from the top. After I finished reading this book, I looked up Grant's own memoirs and saw an interesting bit that Rhea omits entirely: After the battle, there was an exchange of letters between Grant and Lee (which Grant quotes verbatim) in which the Union general requests a truce to collect the dead and wounded. Lee refused repeatedly, until several days later, by which time only two of the many thousands wounded left on the battlefield survived. This is a serious charge and should be addressed in any book on Cold Harbor, if only to dismiss it. Perhaps Rhea will put it in his next volume? I was enchanted by Lee's inherent ability to create good ground for a battle by his knowledge of the countryside and his superior relationship to his staff officers. He was for certain a formidable and great adversary. Grant, on his side, was walking on eggshells. The nominating convention to select a candidate to run against Lincoln was about to take place: A complete route of the Union forces would have led to, God save us all, a President George B. McClellan.
Rating:
Summary: Best Rhea Book Yet
Review: I have closely followed Mr. Rhea's books, and this is his best effort yet. It is well written, thoroughly researched, and does not back away from controversial viewpoints where the evidence supports them. I disagree with the previous reviewer who thought that Mr. Rhea did not present evidence supporting his evaluation of Union casualties at Cold Harbor. In fact, Mr. Rhea laboriously tracks the units engaged and the casualties each sustained, producing the first book to actually delve into the details of Cold Harbor casualties and to provide a sound factual basis for questioning conventional wisdom. He also maintains objectivity and fairly evaluates Grant and Lee. This is an excellent book that contains loads of information available nowhere else and that finally sets the record straight about Cold Harbor. I look forward to Mr. Rhea's next book.
Rating:
Summary: A fine continuation of a top-notch history
Review: I suppose that the most fitting summation of the merits of Gordon Rhea's "Cold Harbor" that I can give would be to simply state that it fully meets the standards established by its predecessors. Rhea has already published three outstanding volumes about the 1864 Overland Campaign waged between Grant and Lee. The present volume wholly lives up to the promise of those earlier books. Despite the complexity of the events described, Rhea's narrative is clear and compelling, and I have gained an understanding of the what's and why's of the Cold Harbor battle that far surpasses anything before. Rhea challenges several popular misconceptions about the battle, especially regarding the famous, ill-fated grand attack of June 3rd. Although in recent years understanding has grown amongst specialist military historians that the image of a hugely costly and essentially unprecedented sacrifice of attacking troops was much more a product of myth rather than fact (Rhea concludes that Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg produced substantially more casualties than the ill-conceived Cold Harbor June 3rd assault), Rhea's book marks the first full use of that understanding in a major narrative history devoted to the battle. Rhea's evaluation of the merits and weaknesses of the contending generals is balanced. Although Grant wins praise for his flexibility in seeking solutions on a strategic level through maneuver instead of simple plow-ahead fighting, Rhea sharply criticizes Grant (and Meade and their chief subordinates) for a failure to establish even the rudiments of tactical control, resulting in innumerable lost opportunities and pointless casualties. And while Lee is given very high marks for his skill in crafting superlative defenses, Rhea also points out that frequently Lee misread the situation, increasing his army's vulnerability at key moments. The description of the combat, ranging from the initial cavalry probes to the full-scale assaults upon entrenched lines as the battle moved to its climax, is extremely well done, doing full justice to the men of both armies. As Rhea amply demonstrates, courage and skill did not wear only one color uniform. Taken as a single work, Rhea's history of the Overland Campaign should rank high on anyone's list of outstanding achievements in the military history of the American Civil War. Balancing a broad scope with fine detail, this whole series of books proves Rhea understands that first-rate narrative history depends on the equal success of both those words: narrative and history. I look forward to the next volume in this outstanding history, which will bring Grant's army across the James River to the defenses of Petersburg.
Rating:
Summary: A fine continuation of a top-notch history
Review: I suppose that the most fitting summation of the merits of Gordon Rhea's "Cold Harbor" that I can give would be to simply state that it fully meets the standards established by its predecessors. Rhea has already published three outstanding volumes about the 1864 Overland Campaign waged between Grant and Lee. The present volume wholly lives up to the promise of those earlier books. Despite the complexity of the events described, Rhea's narrative is clear and compelling, and I have gained an understanding of the what's and why's of the Cold Harbor battle that far surpasses anything before. Rhea challenges several popular misconceptions about the battle, especially regarding the famous, ill-fated grand attack of June 3rd. Although in recent years understanding has grown amongst specialist military historians that the image of a hugely costly and essentially unprecedented sacrifice of attacking troops was much more a product of myth rather than fact (Rhea concludes that Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg produced substantially more casualties than the ill-conceived Cold Harbor June 3rd assault), Rhea's book marks the first full use of that understanding in a major narrative history devoted to the battle. Rhea's evaluation of the merits and weaknesses of the contending generals is balanced. Although Grant wins praise for his flexibility in seeking solutions on a strategic level through maneuver instead of simple plow-ahead fighting, Rhea sharply criticizes Grant (and Meade and their chief subordinates) for a failure to establish even the rudiments of tactical control, resulting in innumerable lost opportunities and pointless casualties. And while Lee is given very high marks for his skill in crafting superlative defenses, Rhea also points out that frequently Lee misread the situation, increasing his army's vulnerability at key moments. The description of the combat, ranging from the initial cavalry probes to the full-scale assaults upon entrenched lines as the battle moved to its climax, is extremely well done, doing full justice to the men of both armies. As Rhea amply demonstrates, courage and skill did not wear only one color uniform. Taken as a single work, Rhea's history of the Overland Campaign should rank high on anyone's list of outstanding achievements in the military history of the American Civil War. Balancing a broad scope with fine detail, this whole series of books proves Rhea understands that first-rate narrative history depends on the equal success of both those words: narrative and history. I look forward to the next volume in this outstanding history, which will bring Grant's army across the James River to the defenses of Petersburg.
Rating: 
Summary: Remarkable claims demand remarkable evidence
Review: I was expecting Mr Rhea's COLD HARBOR to provide a hard-hitting expose of facts to back up his claims that all other histories are wrong---that the Federal attack at the battle suffered nowhere close to the casualties often repeated in numerous works. Sadly, the author makes such remarkable claims, but offers next to no supporting evidence to back them up. Having recently finished another work on Cold Harbor (NOT WAR, BUT MURDER), I compared how the two authors did their work on the casualties, and found Rhea woefully lacking. Now, the fact that Rhea makes a bold claim is fine, but he must back it up with supporting evidence, which in my opinion, he does nothing of the sort. Another aspect of Rhea's COLD HARBOR that is very troubling is his dramatic and different standards to which he holds Lee and Grant. By not having the "playing field" level in this respect, Mr. Rhea is able to come to his advertised conclusion of two equal generals going at each other, only to be foiled in turn by mistakes at lower levels. But had Mr. Rhea held both men to equal standards, had Mr Rhea judged Grant by the same command standards as he holds Lee, one cannot help but think that he would have come to a different conclusion, and that different conclusion being that a far better general was wearing the gray uniform.
Rating:
Summary: Can't See the Forest for the Trees
Review: In this fourth work in a series involving Grant vs. Lee, the author continues to lose the reader in the details. I am appreciative of the author's indepth research, but his insistence on including every letter and diary that he can find does not make his book better. The first two books by this author were both highly readible and insightful. In this volume he has completely bought into the revisionist viewpoint of Grant and Lee, i.e. that Grant has not received nearly the credit that he deserves and that Lee is vastly overrated. In the context of the Civil War period covered in this book, there is some truth to that. Though this book makes some valuable contributions overall I did not find it up to the standard set by Rhea's Wilderness and Spotsylvania books.
Rating:
Summary: Rhea hits a homer in 4th book in Overland Series:
Review: Last night I sat entranced with the words of Gordon C. Rhea as he enthralled a large audience at the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable regarding his new tome Cold Harbor. Rhea has a way
of being able to put complex tactical movements into understandable terms even lay folks like moi can follow. The
sanguinary chess game between Grant and Lee was filled with
surprises, tactical trickery and bloody assaults. The book
punches the life out of several myths such as;
1. Soldiers tied nametags on their uniforms in an early form of "dogtags." No! This first appeared in Horace Porter's post-war work Campaigining With Grant filled with inaccuracies.
2 The battle was the bloodiest assault of the war. Nope! It was fifteenth!
3 Grant was a butcher! Wrong. Rhea learned from modern military folk on a recent staff ride in the area that this was the best option for Grant to follow at this juncture of the campaign.
The book is beautifully written, based on years of solid primary source resourcin and includes many maps to help follow the action1. Highly recommended!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Rhea hits a homer in 4th book in Overland Series:
Review: Last night I sat entranced with the words of Gordon C. Rhea as he enthralled a large audience at the Knoxville Civil War Roundtable regarding his new tome Cold Harbor. Rhea has a way
of being able to put complex tactical movements into understandable terms even lay folks like moi can follow. The
sanguinary chess game between Grant and Lee was filled with
surprises, tactical trickery and bloody assaults. The book
punches the life out of several myths such as;
1. Soldiers tied nametags on their uniforms in an early form of "dogtags." No! This first appeared in Horace Porter's post-war work Campaigining With Grant filled with inaccuracies.
2 The battle was the bloodiest assault of the war. Nope! It was fifteenth!
3 Grant was a butcher! Wrong. Rhea learned from modern military folk on a recent staff ride in the area that this was the best option for Grant to follow at this juncture of the campaign.
The book is beautifully written, based on years of solid primary source resourcin and includes many maps to help follow the action1. Highly recommended!!!!
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