Rhea

The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864. By Gordon C. Rhea. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994. Pp. xviii, 512).

Gordon C. Rhea studies new Union general-in-chief Ulysses S. Grant’s first major battlefield encounter with Confederate General Robert E. Lee in The Battle of the Wilderness. In a fight known for its challenging terrain covered by forest and thick undergrowth and for the unfortunate wildfires that took the lives of many immobilized wounded, the two generals took away key information that would eventually lead Grant to force Lee’s surrender. Grant pursued a war of attrition made easier by the knowledge that Lee would indulge his aggressive, risky nature even when he could not afford the loss of irreplaceable manpower that might result. The author’s careful investigation illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of leadership decisions and battle strategy on both sides, but he emphasizes that by this point in the war it was unlikely that Grant could lose.

According to Rhea, the Army of the Potomac stood at 120,000 strong, however, it had “some elusive, but important variables” such as less experience and untested organizational communication (p. 34). Lee saw the Wilderness of Spotsylvania to the east of his well-defended position on northern Virginia’s Rapidan River as the most advantageous place for his smaller army of 65,000 to fight General George Meade, joined at his command by Grant, because the dense vegetation would limit troop movement. The author rightly contends that the two met on the ground of Lee’s choosing not because he maneuvered to claim the location, but because Grant’s forces lingered in the area long enough for the opposing army to get into position.

Grant attempted to allow Meade to command the troops as they moved through the Wilderness, but problems arose at every turn. Meade failed to confirm that his subordinates stationed pickets along roads leading west toward Lee’s potential approach creating an intelligence void that gave his opponent the element of surprise. When soldiers spotted Confederate troops, Meade’s belief that Lee was entrenched miles away and that this was “a suspected “diversionary force,”…left the Army of the Potomac open to a devastating counterthrust from Lee (p. 109).” Further, Meade’s decisions displayed his characteristic cautious tendencies which contrasted sharply with Grant’s desire for immediate progress. Rhea suggests that their “mixed styles produced ambivalent results that satisfied neither general and failed to achieve what either, acting alone, might have accomplished (p. 184).”

Lee’s inclination to gamble had not changed since his altercation with McClellan at Antietam Creek in 1862. Having sustained considerable losses May 5, he allowed troops exhausted from fighting to rest with no safeguard on the assumption that General Longstreet’s corps would arrive ready for battle. They appeared late, but in time to repel Union troops in a remarkable pushback. Wounded by friendly fire in the confusion of combat in the deep woods, Longstreet left the field. Rhea suggests that Lee insisted on one last assault to exploit Longstreet’s advance because he felt “the risks had been too great and losses too severe to forgo the offensive (p. 402).” Ultimately, neither side could claim decisive victory. The result of this clash taught both Grant and Lee valuable lessons about the other’s strength and strategic skill that they would put to use just a few days later at Spotsylvania Court House and in the year-long struggle that led to the Confederate surrender.

Rhea breaks this complicated battle down by action during morning, noon, and evening of each day in this lengthy, but informative volume. Weighed down at times by dramatic language, overall he is at his best explaining the details of intense battle scenes, of which the Wilderness had many. Aided by maps and an appendix of the order of battle, he tells a compelling story and provides an excellent resource well documented with memoirs, diaries, correspondence, unit histories, newspapers, and the Official Records.

Texas Christian University LeAnna Schooley

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The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864. By George C. Rhea. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, c. 1994. ISBN 0-8071-1873-7).

The Battle of the Wilderness was a confusing affair that resulted in over 20,000 combined casualties. Gordon C. Rhea attempts to make sense out of this complex conflict, and does a commendable job in doing so. In analyzing this battle, Rhea focuses primarily on the commanding officers in both armies and the decisions they made on May 5^th-6^th, 1864. Prior to the engagement, morale was high in both armies. The Army of the Potomac had confidence in Meade as a result of their victory at Gettysburg. Meanwhile, Confederate morale still remained high despite the defeat at Gettysburg. Men throughout the Confederate ranks retained supreme confidence in their commander Lee, and believed he would lead them to victory. In order to defeat Lee, Grant’s aim was to get between Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Richmond, which he desired to accomplish by fording the Rapidan River. Although this was a difficult maneuver, with a little luck and assertiveness, this plan was feasible. This engagement was the first of the civil war where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant squared off against one another. According to the author, neither was particularly impressive throughout this contest. For example, Rhea criticizes Lee for not reaching the advantageous ground in the Wilderness before Meade. Rhea also illuminates that, contrary to popular belief, Lee did not trap Grant in the Wilderness. Instead, Lee benefitted from porous Federal organization and scouting. Therefore, it was more due to Federal mishaps than Lee’s military genius. Meade is likewise criticized by the author for the amount of men he devotes to guarding his supply train, weakening his ability to scout and screen the opposing army. Although protecting a supply train is critical to the success of an army, Meade had a sense of paranoia during this campaign when it came to keeping the rebels out of his supplies.

The Battle of the Wilderness began as Grant attempted to ford the Rapidan River in order to put himself between Lee’s army and the capital of the Confederacy, Richmond. The Union army was delayed however as they passed through the Wilderness, which was a dense collection of scrub growth near Fredericksburg. Due to this delay, Lee engaged the Union forces in the Wilderness negating their superior numbers in men and weaponry. Yet the Federals almost achieved victory on the second day of battle, as Grant ordered an assault that routed Lee’s III corps under the command of Ewell, creating the possibility for the destruction of his army. Fortunately for the Confederacy, Lee’s I corps under the command of Longstreet arrived just in time to prevent the destruction of his army and the Confederacy. Although the Union lost considerably more men in this battle, both armies lost around 17 percent of their fighting force. Consequently, the Union had the ability to fight battles such as these because they replaced their losses, yet the Confederacy was not so lucky. Rhea illustrates that Lee was a very effective military commander, but the Confederacy could simply not replace casualties like the Union. Although Lee achieved victory in many battles, his army usually paid a dear price for those victories. Therefore while Lee was winning battles in the eastern theatre, he was losing the war in the long run. While Rhea is critical of Lee, he also finds fault with the Union high command. Due to the structure of the Union army, it was quite difficult to act efficiently and quickly. General George Meade commanded the Army of the Potomac, yet took orders from Grant who was the overall commander of Union forces. Consequently it was this complex command structure that posed delays for the Union army, and was part of the reason they became trapped in the Wilderness.

While Rhea effectively portrays the actions of the commanders, and their strategies in winning this particular conflict, this book is worth reading for another reason. The author has a tremendous ability to make the battle come to life, and at times this work reads more like a novel than a historical account. Rhea conveys the carnage of this battle as he describes how underbrush caught fire and burned some men alive. He also describes the horrid sounds and images that came from the dead and dying. Consequently, the reader does not simply learn about this battle, the reader experiences it firsthand. The battle of the Wilderness was a confusing and bloody affair, yet Rhea makes sense out of much of it. It was the first conflict that pitted Lee versus Grant, and neither man could really claim victory over this particular clash. Although the battle was theoretically a draw, it was a Union victory to some degree as the Confederates could not keep replacing their losses at the rate the Union could.

Albert Cox

Texas Christian University

The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864. By Gordon C. Rhea. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.

The battle of the Wilderness, the opening contest between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee in the 1864 Overland campaign, haunts the collective American memory as one of the most nightmarish struggles waged in a war known for its brutality. The very name of the Wilderness conjures into mind a hellish vision of a primordial landscape enveloped with impenetrable vegetation, shrouded in dense smoke and raging fires, erupting with furious combat and unimaginable human suffering, especially for those wounded that were unable to escape from encroaching flames and were tragically burned alive. In The Battle of the Wilderness May 5-6, 1864, noted Civil War historian Gordon C. Rhea cuts through the complex tangles of time to reveal the neglected truth of this infamous battle. Rhea, one of the world’s foremost experts on the battle, presents the Battle of the Wilderness as the opening study of an award-winning series on the Overland campaign.

Rhea conducted extensive research for this volume, consulting numerous primary resources such as manuscripts, diaries, letters, newspaper accounts, official reports, memoirs, and secondary campaign studies. The book, organized as a tactical narrative history of the battle, focuses on the two primary days of the Wilderness conflict and Grant’s decision to continue the campaign after the battle had reached a tactical stalemate, rather than retreating as previous Union commanders had done before in Virginia. The research also incorporates the accounts of the ordinary soldiers of both sides who endured the atrocious carnage of the Wilderness, which had been the scene of severe fighting only a year before during the battle of Chancellorsville.

Rhea’s narrative relates the ferocious bloodshed of the entire battle, from the opening assaults along the Orange Turnpike on May 5 to the climatic showdown on the Orange Plank Road on May 6, including the lesser known cavalry actions south of the Wilderness. Rhea presents a number of novel conclusions regarding generalship of both Grant and Lee, and Rhea objectively criticizes both for their mistakes. Grant’s performance is faulted for his failure to extricate the Army of the Potomac from the Wilderness in a timely manner as his strategy dictated, for failing to coordinate the separate assaults of the first and second days, and most of all, for severely underestimating the audacity of his advisory, who proved himself to be far superior to the opponents Grant had faced before in the Western Theater. Robert E. Lee’s mythical reputation, on the other hand, is challenged for not reacting quickly to Grant’s flanking maneuver, for allowing A. P. Hill’s 3rd Corps to rest during the night after the first day’s vicious combat and not reorganize their defenses, for not pressing Richard Ewell’s 2nd Corps to assault earlier on the second day against the Federal right flank, and for resulting to a questionable frontal attack after the wounding of 1st Corps commander James Longstreet and the resulting breakdown of the Confederate flanking attack on the Union left.

Rhea concludes that battle of the Wilderness, while a tactical victory for Lee, ended with strategic “Confederate failure,” declaring that “the southerners had been unable to maintain the initiative. Now the Army of Northern Virginia’s offensive capacity was spent. . . . The only reasonable course of action remaining to the Confederates was to stay in their strong defensive line and wait for Grant to make a mistake” (441). Although Lee had inflicted terrible punishment on the Army of the Potomac, he did not destroy his enemy, and Grant’s decision to continue marching southward to Spotsylvania Courthouse determined the future outcome of campaign and ultimately the war. Although thousands more would fall in the epic contest between Grant and Lee, the die was cast for their last legendary meeting at Appomattox Courthouse.

The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864. By Gordon C. Rhea. (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University, 1994).

In The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-6, 1864, historian Gordon C. Rhea delivers a detailed narrative of the engagement between Confederate forces under the command of Robert E. Lee and Union forces led by the newly appointed commander of the Union armies, Ulysses S. Grant. The first match between Lee and Grant, The Battles of the Wilderness presented each leader with formidable challenges. Lee needed to design a strategy aimed at securing a Confederate victory against an army twice the size of his own. Grant faced the challenge of maneuvering Lee’s forces into a position more favorable to Union forces than Lee’s entrenched position on the banks of the Rapidan River in Virginia. Lee’s troops rested securely behind fortified positions on the southern bank of the river facing Major General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac.

Rhea provides an analysis of the leadership capabilities of Grant, Lee and their subordinate officers. According to the author, Lee’s leadership was frequently characterized by “unabashed aggressiveness, combined with an irrepressible penchant for taking risks.” As a result, Lee hoped to exploit the striking power of his smaller army. Despite his successes against the Union army, Lee’s army suffered from limited resources. As a result, his engagements severely depleted the supply of soldiers in the south. Unless Lee delivered a devastating blow to the Union army, the North would win due to attrition. Rhea states that 1864 represented Lee’s last chance to win, if it was not already too late. Lee’s subordinate officers included Lieutenant Generals James Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, and Ambrose Hill. Rhea describes Lee’s generals as a quarrelsome lot, whose idiosyncrasies and flaws of judgment precluded Lee’s full trust in their leadership. Lee’s challenge included forcing these leaders to work together in battle. By May 2^nd, Lee commanded an army of approximately 65,000 soldiers.

The author’s assessment of the Union army also reveals the newly appointed Grant’s struggle to impose an aggressive imperative upon the command structure of the Union army. Grant’s leadership style matched Lee’s in aggressiveness and determination. Grant recognized Lee’s weakness and vowed to defeat the confederate general through sheer attrition if necessary. Grant intended to keep pounding away at Lee’s army until Lee surrendered or his army was destroyed. In addition, Grant rejected the previous policy of occupying the southern countryside. Southern cities remained secondary goals to the destruction of Lee’s army.

Rhea’s assessment of General Meade’s leadership reveals a crippling obsession with cautious movement of troops and obsessive attention to detail. Grant provided a renewed focus for the Union army. Nevertheless, Grant apparently acquiesced to Meade’s leadership decisions during much of the battle. The reason for Grant’s reticence is never satisfactorily explained. The author’s analysis of Meade’s choices in generals is decidedly more favorable. According to the author, Winfield Hancock, Gouverneur K. Warren and John Sedgwick represented the most promising set of commanders ever assembled in the Union army. Nevertheless, Grant also suffered from poor communication and a lack of coordination amongst his commands.

Rhea’s narrative describing the prosecution of the battle from May 4^th through May 5^th provides the reader with exhaustive detail of the battle and troops movements. His account of troop movements, command decisions and logistical difficulties allows the reader to grasp the chaos of battle and the challenges faced by both sides. The author spares criticism for neither side of the battle. He blames Lee for failing to position his men in a more advantageous position to stop Meade’s advance. He criticizes Grant for failing to use Burnside's army to pin Lee down early in the campaign. Meade receives criticism for his obsessive concern over guarding his supply line, thus failing to effectively utilize his cavalry to screen the advance of his army. In addition, Rhea argues that once engaged Meade consistently failed to effectively deploy his superior force against a weaker army. Perhaps most controversially, Rhea maintains that the Union army became bogged down in the Wilderness because of sloppy Union planning and reconnaissance, not due to any decisive action by Lee. During the battle, Rhea argues that Ewell was indecisive, Hill was careless, and Longstreet was slow. As a result, Lee controlled his forces no better than his Union counterparts.

Rhea’s work is exhaustively researched and the author provides the reader with twenty maps designed to facilitate an understanding of what is often a confusing narrative. An appendix provide readers with the order of battle, followed by a comprehensive bibliography.