Crucial Land Battles

The aftershocks of the War Between the States have yet to stop reverberating through the social, political, and economic fabric of the United States. Not surprisingly, the names of the major battles- Antietam, Gettysburg, and Pea Ridge, to name just a few are still recognizable today as the settings for the bloodiest conflict ever conducted on American soil. Civil War Chronicles: Crucial Land Battles sur- veys the most pivotal battles of a war that changed the course of history and divested an emerging nation of its innocence, recounting the personalities and strategies behind these momentous events.

Beginning with the first major Union victories, the neutralization of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson- the Confederate forts controlling the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers-Crucial Land Battles paints a compelling picture of the struggle between the North and South. As the war enveloped more of the conti- nent, the Battle of Pea Ridge was fought to preserve Missouri for the Union. Then, in an effort to bring the war to the North, Confederate General Robert E. Lee launched an attack on Washington. Lee's forces were intercepted by the Union army at Antietam, which became the bloodiest confrontation in the war: almost five thousand men died on that day and almost twen- ty thousand were wounded. With this maneuver, Lee established that it would be a long war-a war that would not easily be won by either side.

The North's Ulysses S. Grant struck a crippling blow to the South during the Vicksburg Campaign by overwhelming the last Confederate fort on the Mississippi River, the lifeline of the underindustrial- ized Confederacy. Simultaneously, Lee again attacked the North, this time in a desperate invasion

attempt that swept northward to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Temporarily shaken by a close call at Gettysburg, the Union quickly recovered and began an unrelenting series of campaigns against a Confederate army that had been bled nearly dry. Confederate armies again moved toward Washington; under the command of General Jubal Early, this inva- sion almost worked. If not for the delaying action fought by Lew Wallace at the Battle of Monocacy, the Confederates might have captured Washington and Lincoln might have been replaced by peace candidate George McClellan.

By the middle of 1864 the Union was making great strides toward victory and by December had struck a telling blow by taking the city of Atlanta; the key to this campaign had been the Battle of Peachtree Creek. In early 1865 the final chapters in this struggle were being written: the Union victory at Five Forks on April 1, 1865, proved to be the turning point in the Petersburg Campaign, which in turn led to the surrender of the Confederate forces at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

Written by Civil War historian David Phillips and fully illustrated with unique cutaway terrain maps, rare photographs of people and artifacts, and full- color historical paintings by noted Civil War expert Don Troiani, Crucial Land Battles is a comprehensive introduction to the key events that defined this sweeping conflict.