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

Trudeau, Noah Andre

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807118613 ISBN 13: 9780807118610

Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr, 1991

Synopsis

Perhaps no other battle or campaign of the American Civil War equalled the siege of Petersburg, Virginia. For 292 days, the war's final drama was played out over the fate of this once gracious Southern town, "the last bulwark of the Confederacy". The book covers the 11-month siege of Petersburg.

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 Library Journal:

Where Richard Sommers ( Richmond Redeemed , LJ 3/15/81) gave us four days of battle, Trudeau canvases the whole 292-day campaign for Petersburg and Richmond. Trudeau salts his narrative with healthy doses of official testimony and soldiers' personal accounts to create a brisk documentary flavor of campfire and war council. In minute detail he covers every clod of Virginia soil trod by Grant and Lee in the final days of the war. His telling of the horrors of the Crater and his vignettes of officers are compelling, but overall Trudeau fails to show how Petersburg was "the South's Gethsemane." The author writes about battles more than the Southern soul or the politics of war. Still, he dashes several myths about Petersburg--that Lee's army was starved and hopelessly outnumbered--and provides one of the most arresting narratives of any Civil War campaign. This is the stuff of high drama.
- Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0807118613
• ISBN 13: 9780807118610
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 514