Review- "A Campaign of Giants - The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 2: From the Crater's Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill" by A. Wilson Greene

[A Campaign of Giants - The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 2: From the Crater's Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill by A. Wilson Greene (University of North Carolina Press, 2025). Hardcover, 34 maps, endnotes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xiii,495/706. ISBN:978-1-4696-8481-9. $45]

Generations of avid followers of the Civil War campaigns fought in the eastern theater between the Union Army of the Potomac and Confederate Army of Northern Virginia have been enthralled by streams of books detailing the sweeping maneuvers, crushing flank attacks, and grand assaults that generated signature moments of enduring distinction among so many of the great field contests of 1862-63. However, when considering the campaigns fought in the theater from the spring of 1864 onward, a different popular impression of the style of warfare fought between those mighty foes emerged. For a long time, reader perception of the 1864 Overland Campaign was primarily that of a continuous series of brutal frontal slugging matches remarkable mostly for the unprecedented attritional bloodletting they produced amid extensive tactical reliance on fieldworks, and the 1864-65 Richmond-Petersburg Campaign was widely seen as a static "siege" operation. Over recent decades, though, those simplistic characterizations have been significantly overthrown by way of fresh scholarship and reassessment. Starting with Gordon Rhea's classic series of books, the Overland Campaign has come to be seen and appreciated with far more operational and tactical nuance than ever before. For the 1864-65 Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, a flood of new books has revealed that that long campaign, far from being anything truly siege-like, rather consisted of a series of mobile offensives that produced numerous battles with a great many features of interest to inquisitive military history students. A major contributor to that profound altering of perception is A. Wilson Greene, his latest project being a monumental three-volume history that began in 2018 with the release of A Campaign of Giants - The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 1: From the Crossing of the James to the Crater. Published earlier this year, the middle tome, A Campaign of Giants - The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 2: From the Crater's Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill, is the subject of this review. It comprehensively addresses events on the Richmond and Petersburg fronts from the beginning of August 1864 through the end of October, months that encompassed the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth of the campaign's nine distinct offensives.

The Fourth Offensive (August 12-25) marked further development of Union Army general in chief U.S. Grant's overall theater strategy of launching coordinated offensive movements against either end of the Richmond-Petersburg line. With the Confederates not knowing which of the two was the main effort, the hope was that good timing and local superiority in numbers would combine to score a major breakthrough. If outright capture of those cities could not be achieved, at the very least gains would be made in isolating them further. While the Battle of Second Deep Bottom, on the face of it, was poorly conducted and failed to either threaten Richmond or cut the Virginia Central Railroad, it did practically ensure that the Confederates couldn't provide further aid to Jubal Early's Shenandoah Valley operation. Regardless of how much that affected Lee's real plans, the resources that went into stopping the Union attack north of the James weakened Confederate forces south of the river and eased Union Fifth Corps' task of seizing the Weldon Railroad (a major lifeline into Petersburg). During the fighting on August 18-19, G.K. Warren's Fifth Corps successfully cut across the railroad, but the gap between its advance and the rest of the army was negligently spanned (the blame for which could be spread around). That hole in the front was exploited in devastating fashion by William Mahone's Confederate division, which launched a breakthrough attack that hauled in a massive load of prisoners before being halted by arriving Union Ninth Corps elements. The Confederates didn't have the numbers to fully exploit their initial breakthrough and were rather easily turned back with heavy losses of their own during the subsequent August 21 fighting against Fifth Corps's firmly entrenched position across the railroad. In the author's view, Mahone, as he had earlier in the campaign, "played the starring role" in the Fourth Offensive. Warren's grade, on the other hand, was decidedly mixed. The controversial Fifth Corps commander displayed little in the way of offensive-minded drive and initiative, and he shared responsibility for the open space in the front line that Mahone exploited. On a more positive note, Warren partially redeemed himself on the 21st (although, as Greene maintains, achieving that defensive victory did not require any great display of generalship, and Warren made no effort to take advantage of the enemy's newly vulnerable condition). The action did not end there, though, as Grant and Meade sought to expand their gains. By any measure, the resulting Battle of Second Reams Station (August 25) was poorly fought affair on the Union side. As Greene outlines, Second Corps lines were badly placed, cavalry reconnaissance completely missed the Confederate build-up nearby, and Meade inadequately supported Hancock. In addition to severely damaging Second Corps, adding 2,000 prisoners to the larger haul accumulated only days earlier, Lee's men halted further destruction of the Weldon Railroad, which kept at a manageable distance the logistical bypass that Warren's continued presence astride the railroad still forced upon them.

Upon concluding his meticulous description and analysis of the Fourth Offensive, Greene detours into an informative look into the ongoing development of federal siegecraft, especially in the context of how it was applied to consolidating the gains produced by the latest offensive. The author also explores side topics such as fraternization between the armies and the reactions of both sides to the fall of Atlanta. During this operational pause, Union forces also grasped the opportunity to reorganize their order of battle. The main military event of the period bridging the Fourth and Fifth offensives was the "Beefsteak Raid." While Greene's fine account of that celebrated Confederate cavalry operation concludes that success was primarily due to neglect and complacency among the Union leadership, it also offers strong accolades for the man who conceived and conducted it, Wade Hampton. Throughout Greene's narrative it is revealed that Hampton was a more than capable replacement for the late Jeb Stuart, the tactical skill displayed during his command's close cooperation with the infantry on multiple occasions playing an important part in limiting Union gains below Petersburg. Indeed, while the story of the final breakthrough at Petersburg and complete success of the Appomattox Campaign in 1865 is commonly attributed to the advanced development of Union combined arms deployment of infantry and cavalry, a strong argument could be made that the Confederates held the upper hand in that regard (though theirs was more defensive in nature) on the Petersburg front in 1864. A major theme developed early on and throughout the rest of the book is the profound effects Shenandoah Valley-related events and strategic considerations had on operational planning for both sides on the Richmond and Petersburg fronts. Involved with all of that was a mixture of opportunity and fear of enemy intentions (real and imagined).

In his assessment of Grant's Fifth Offensive (September 29-October 2), Greene gives Army of the James commander Benjamin Butler mixed marks. Though Butler's command seized New Market Heights and captured Fort Harrison, further attacks ultimately fell short against the Intermediate Line of Richmond's three-ringed system of defensive fortifications. The initial plan of operations was well-received and Grant approved it without revision, but the author feels that Butler accorded more weight than was needed against the thinly held heights, not leaving enough strength to push beyond Fort Harrison, breach the Intermediate Line, and push into Richmond. Greene is certainly persuasive in arguing that leadership failures (and inopportune high command casualties), played a major part in stalling what was, even by early morning, a very promising offensive. On the Confederate side, Lee balanced his forces on both sides of the James in judicious fashion yet again, and the Richmond front's collection of front-line, second-line, and reserve troops held on better than could reasonably be expected against long odds and did not widely panic after initial disaster. Forced to wait until the next day to respond, Lee, determined to recover the lost ground, launched a counterattack against Fort Harrison that failed in the face of poor coordination from his subordinates and a consolidated defense. Meanwhile, on the other end of the line below Petersburg, four divisions of Warren's Fifth and John Parke's Ninth Corps set out west to test the sector held by A.P. Hill's Confederates and make sure no more enemy reinforcements left for the Richmond or Shenandoah fronts. Their limited action was authorized to shift over into a major offensive if circumstances permitted. While Warren and Parke seized the lightly held Squirrel Level Line on September 30, only cautious advances followed, and Hill seized the initiative, smashing the federal advance at Pegram's Farm (taking in another large haul of prisoners). The following day, the Confederates, eager to reprise their devastating counterattack of August 19, instead bungled the assault against a better prepared enemy, leading to hundreds of ill-afforded casualties. Resumption of offensive action was urged by Grant and Meade, but Warren and Parke only inched forward with their innate caution, and the Fifth Offensive ended up petering out on both sides of the James after some ineffectual probing attacks.

As Greene convincingly demonstrates, both sides had reason to be alternatively pleased and disappointed with aspects of the Fifth Offensive. The Confederates lost Fort Harrison on the Richmond front and their Squirrel Level Line buffer southwest of Petersburg, but they inflicted better than two to one losses on their foes and maintained every critical point, sealing off the breakthrough at Fort Harrison and maintaining possession of the primary positions covering the Boydton Plank Road and South Side Railroad. Union forces, by seizing the Squirrel Level Line were able to use that new position to anchor yet another westward push across Petersburg's southern front. Butler's command captured Fort Harrison (though the long-term significance of that achievement proved minimal), and his USCT forces were able to earn valuable combat prestige and experience at New Market Heights. Throughout Greene's Fifth Offensive coverage, one gains an appreciation for how adeptly the Confederate defenders employed interior lines and tactical flexibility to counter Meade and Butler's more plodding subordinates and superior numbers.

The significance of the Confederate attack down Darbytown Road on October 7, which brushed aside Butler's right flank cavalry before being stopped cold by the refused line of fortifications held by David Birney's Tenth Corps, is recognized as marking the final attempt by Lee to eliminate the Union threat to Richmond north of the James (or at least limit it to a small bridgehead at Deep Bottom). Greene also conjectures that the failure led Lee to finally accept that his army could no longer risk heavy casualties through large-scale counterattacks. But that realization did not mean the end of activity on the Richmond front. The period between the end of the Fifth Offensive and the beginning of the Sixth Offensive witnessed both a major extension of Confederate entrenchments east of Richmond (the "Alexander Line") and a major testing of those new positions by Butler's command, which was repulsed with significant loss in the Second Battle of Darbytown Road. On the other end of the line, near Squirrel Level Road, more clashes erupted across no man's land.

For his Sixth Offensive (October 27-28), Grant continued to hit upon his promising strategy of employing simultaneous attacks on both ends of the long Richmond-Petersburg line. North of the James, Butler's two corps (Tenth and Eighteenth) sought to outflank the newly extended Confederate front before Richmond but instead engaged the Confederate defenders, who used lateral flexibility to meet them head on, through a series of poorly conducted attacks that produced no results noteworthy enough to justify the casualties incurred. Meanwhile, strong elements of Second, Fifth, and Ninth corps plus Gregg's cavalry swung around the far Confederate right below Petersburg and attempted to seize the grail objectives of Boydton Plank Road and the South Side Railroad. Neither of those lofty goals would be met, as Parke and Warren became immediately bogged down, leaving Hancock to fight off a fierce counterattack at Burgess Mill. Their rebuff left the Confederate spearheads, especially Mahone's men, isolated and vulnerable, and it was with great difficulty that they were able to disengage and withdraw without disaster. In the end, both sides suffered roughly equal casualties overall and Second Corps fell back rather than risk staying in an isolated position. With that fizzle went any hope of achieving a signal success on the Richmond and Petersburg fronts that might have helped clinch Lincoln's prospects for reelection. For the eastern theater at least, that honor would go to Philip Sheridan's series of victories in the Shenandoah Valley.

In conveying to readers an understanding as to why this series of Union offensives, like those that preceded them, failed to achieve greater results, Greene focuses mostly closely on controllable factors. At a number of places in the narrative, Grant's frustration is felt deeply, as his innate aggressiveness could not be fully transmitted to the tip of the spear on either side of the James. If Grant was a jolt of electricity from the top, and Meade duly carried out his superior's wishes while also offering sage advisement, the charge steadily diminished as it moved down the Union order of battle, which acted like a poorly insulated conducting wire. Even the usually reliable cavalry division commander David Gregg significantly underperformed during this period. In ways that attempted to cover up their own shortcomings, Union leaders frequently blamed their own men for defeats. At numerous points in the book, the author reveals damning quotes, originating from high-ranking Union generals and lesser lights alike, that routinely blamed the new men in the army for the most lopsided mishaps suffered at the hands of Lee's veterans. Directly confronting those claims might be beyond the scope of Greene's investigation, but one hopes that the third volume can reserve some space for addressing the most recent scholarship on the topic. Completed around the same time as Greene's Volume 2 are major works from Edwin Rutan and Alexandre Caillot that strongly challenge the most persistently hidebound negative assessments of the fighting capabilities of the Army of the Potomac's late-war enlistees and regiments.

As revealed in the book, the Confederates were not without their own accumulation of operational misjudgments and tactical mistakes. Lee is reasonably second-guessed on occasion, one example being his determination to go forward with a delayed counterattack to try to recover Fort Harrison, but the record remains clear that the Confederate leadership overall performed commendably in limiting federal gains to manageable losses in the near term. Of Lee's subordinates, hard-hitting William Mahone emerges as his commander's chief fireman on many battlefields described in both volumes, and Greene's narrative also offers renewed appreciation for Henry Heth, who is typically regarded as a fairly middling major general. With the ailing A.P. Hill leaving a bit of a higher leadership void along his overstretched and highly vulnerable Third Corps front, Heth stepped up effectively in some key moments.

Though Greene prominently pays homage to those who have covered this material before, singling out for special recognition Hampton Newsome, John Horn, and the late Richard Sommers, and refers his readers to the relevant works from that trio to find even more micro-level detail, his own narrative offers impressive levels of tactical depth and sage analysis. Indeed, Greene ranks high in his ability to transform a vast amount of primary and secondary source research into a complex yet readily comprehensible campaign and battlefield narrative. Supplementing Green's text is a set of very fine operational and tactical-scale maps (34 in total) from Edward Alexander that cover the action without leaving any notable gaps.

Judging from the content and tone of this review, one might correctly surmise that this volume receives the site's highest possible recommendation. If V3 meets the same standards set by V1-2, and there is no reason to suppose otherwise, then the finished trilogy will unquestionably become a lasting standard on the same order as other top-flight book series such as David Powell's Chickamauga, Timothy Smith's Vicksburg, and Gordon Rhea's aforementioned Overland Campaign work.