Booknotes: A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign (Volume 2)

New Arrival:

• A Summer of Battles - The Final Weeks of the Civil War's 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Volume 2: Jonesboro, Lovejoy's Station and the Capture of Atlanta by David Allison (Author, 2025).

One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier Booknotes entry for Volume 1 was that the pair comes in both hardback and paperback versions. The cover art is the same, with the hardback being jacket-less with a glossy covering over the boards.

From the description: "Volume 2 picks up as General Sherman’s army approaches the Macon railroad in several places south of Atlanta, aiming to cut the vital railroad supply line of the Confederate army holding Atlanta." The narrative "provides an in-depth exploration of the Confederate attack at Jonesboro on August 31, 1864, and the Federal attack on September 1", and it "wraps up with accounts of the fighting at Lovejoy’s Station and the conclusion of the Atlanta Campaign."

The main narrative runs just over 300 pages, so the second volume is similar in size to the first. I handcounted four maps (two for the Battle of Jonesboro) in support of the text. More: "Appendices document some of the terrible human costs of the final weeks of fighting among soldiers and their families, an important topic often ignored in other works focused on the highest levels of command." Other appendix topics include more extensive looks at casualty numbers and care of the wounded. Some disputed points, such as assigning blame for Hood's "escape," are also addressed in the appendix section.