Hurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor, May 26 - June 5, 1864

Lees army is really whipped, Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant believed. May 1864 had witnessed near-constant combat between his Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Grant, unlike his predecessors, had not relented in his pounding of the Confederates. The armies clashed in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Courthouse and along the North Anna River. Whenever combat failed to break the Confederates, Grant resorted to maneuver.I propose to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer, Grant vowedand it had. Casualties mounted on both sidesbut Grant kept coming. Although the great, decisive assault had eluded him, he continued to punish Lees army. The blows his army landed were nothing like the Confederates had experienced before. The constant marching and fighting had reduced Robert E. Lees once-vaunted army into a bedraggled husk of its former glory. In Grants mind, he had worn his foes down and now prepared to deliver the deathblow. Turning Lees flank once more, he hoped to fight the final, decisive battle of the war in the area bordering the Pamunkey and Chickahominy rivers, less than fifteen miles from the outskirts of the Confederate capital of Richmond.I may be mistaken, but I feel that our success over Lees army is already assured, Grant confided to Washington. The stakes had grown enormous. Grants staggering casualty lists had driven Northern morale to his lowest point of the war. Would Lees men hold on to defend their besieged capitaland, in doing so, prolong the war until the North will collapsed entirely? Or would another round of hard fighting finally be enough to crush Lees army? Could Grant push through and end the war? Grant would find his answers around a small Virginia crossroads called Cold Harborand he would always regret the results. Historians Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt have studied the 1864 Overland Campaign since their early days working at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, where Grant first started on his bloody road southa road that eventually led straight into the eye of a proverbialHurricane from the Heavens. Hurricane from the Heavens can be read in the comfort of ones favorite armchair or as a battlefield guide. It is part of the popular Emerging Civil War Series, which offers compelling, easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil Wars most important stories. The masterful storytelling is richly enhanced with more than one hundred photos, illustrations, and maps. See more