The Last Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia June 1864-April 1865 - Hardcover

Trudeau, Noah Andre

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316853275 ISBN 13: 9780316853279

Publisher: Little Brown & Co, 1991

Synopsis

Chronicles the 292-day siege of Petersburg, Virginia, the closing act of the Civil War that claimed an unprecedented loss of life and provoked the Battle of the Crater, which introduced deadly new techniques of warfare

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A finely detailed resumption of the harrowing story of Grant's relentless drive south that brought Union armies to Cold Harbor, Virginia--a campaign whose initial stages were described so well in Trudeau's Bloody Roads South (1989). Here, Trudeau covers the 11-month siege and capture of Petersburg, the gracious southern town that was a rail center, major rebel supply depot, and lifeline to Richmond, capital of the Confederacy. He shows us the great commanders matching wits in a long bloody duel: Grant, the cool, calculating master of logistics, waging a war of attrition against the wily, charismatic Lee, whose outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia usually emerged victorious through brilliant tactics. Trudeau includes a description of the bizarre Battle of the Crater, in which Pennsylvania miners dug a 500-foot tunnel packed with powder under Southern defenses, causing a great explosion and resulting in a fierce battle between major forces. Petersburg was the largest military action ever waged against an American city, greater than the more publicized sieges of Southern citadels like Richmond, Atlanta, and Vicksburg. As usual, Trudeau has done exhaustive research of great sprawling events that at times may overwhelm a general reader. He not only cites formal historical accounts, unit histories, and field reports of officers but adds a needed human dimension, expounding on what war means to soldiers and civilians by consulting diaries, letters, memoirs, and eyewitness reports that bring home the horror and terror of combat. Perhaps the definitive one-volume account of the siege of Petersburg--a great achievement in mastering and interpreting vast material. (Maps and drawings.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

A sequel to Bloody Roads South (which covered the Overland Campaign of May-June 1864), this follows the fighting in Virginia to early April 1865, shortly before Lee's surrender at Appomattox. The nine-month Petersburg campaign was, in the author's view, the South's Gethsemane ("the place where its moral character and its belief in its own righteous cause faced their ultimate testing"). In masterly fashion Trudeau tracks the tactical struggle as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant seeks weak spots in Gen. Robert E. Lee's lines while Lee, forced to spread his smaller army ever more thinly, contests Grant's flanking movements in a series of hard-fought battles. Trudeau also provides vivid glimpses of civilian life inside besieged Petersburg and describes President Lincoln's visits to Grant's headquarters during the siege. The campaign reached its climax with Gen. Philip Sheridan's victory at Five Forks, followed by an assault on the Confederate lines which broke Lee's resistance. This oft-ignored major campaign of the Civil War receives expert examination here. Illustrations.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Little Brown & Co
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0316853275
• ISBN 13: 9780316853279
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 514