| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May–June 1864. By Mark Grimsley. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. xxii, 282 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-8032-2162-2.)

Cold Harbor: Grant and Lee, May 26–June 3, 1864. By Gordon C. Rhea. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. xx, 532 pp. $34.95, ISBN 0-8071-2803-1.)

Though by far the bloodiest and most decisive campaign in the eastern theater of the Civil War, the Virginia overland campaign of 1864 has not received the attention of other eastern conflicts, having been overshadowed by the battles of Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, Antietam, and the like. Thus, good scholarly studies such as Mark Grimsley's and Gordon C. Rhea's are welcome additions to the somewhat skewed historiography of the war in the east.

Grimsley's work is a synthesis that includes traditional and "new" military history methodologies, typical of the Great Campaigns of the Civil War series of which it is the latest volume. Yet Grimsley does not get bogged down with a traditional narrative, for his prose is very much an overview based on the actions of commanders, though a well-written chapter is devoted to the impact of the campaign on soldiers and civilians. He notes that partisans of the new military history disdain this attention to leaders, but, he argues, "these men initiate the battle and give meaning to the outcome.... Indeed, making sense of any campaign without reference to the perspectives of those in charge of it is hard" (p. xvi). This reviewer agrees; no one can understand any military campaign without having an understanding of those who direct it.

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