With excellent studies of the 1865 army clashes in North Carolina and Virginia, the lesser-known
Stoneman's Raid, and more, the war's final campaigns have been well documented in the recent and near recent Civil War literature. There's even been a rather grand study of a small engagement in Georgia that one author believes deserving of "
last battle" fame. However, oddly enough, the best treatment of one of the most famous events of that period,
Wilson's Raid, remains James Pickett Jones's 1976 classic
Yankee Blitzkrieg. While good, that book certainly leaves room for improvement.
This winter, The History Press will publish Russell Blount's
Wilson's Raid: The Final Blow to the Confederacy
(Feb, 2018). Volumes from the publisher's Civil War Series range in character from popular overviews to quite impressive specialized studies. I'm not familiar with Blount's body of work (I had a copy of his New Hope Church book at one time but never got around to reading it) but will be interested in checking out this particular one when it comes out.
(Feb, 2018). Volumes from the publisher's Civil War Series range in character from popular overviews to quite impressive specialized studies. I'm not familiar with Blount's body of work (I had a copy of his New Hope Church book at one time but never got around to reading it) but will be interested in checking out this particular one when it comes out.
My own perspective is that the New Hope Church book seemed a bit "thin" - ostensibly a battle narrative but it actually covers three in fewer than 200 pages, which puts it on the fence between something like Castel, on the one hand, and Butkovich, who covers just one of these battles more thoroughly, on the other. He does adopt Castel's present tense approach. I've never been sure how useful that is.
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