Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook353 pages2 hours
Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Finalist, 2016, Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award
Soldiers called it one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom”—the Wilderness of Virginia, seventy square miles of dense, second-growth forest known as “the dark, close wood.”
“A more unpromising theatre of war was never seen,” said another.
Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror.
Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Immovable object intercepted irresistible force—and the Wilderness burst into flame.
With the forest itself burning around them, men died by the thousands. The armies bloodied each other without mercy and, at times, without any semblance of order. The brush grew so dense, and the smoke hung so thick, men could not see who stood next to them—or in front of them. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said.
It was, said another, “hell itself.”
Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive.
For more than a decade, Chris Mackowski has guided visitors across the battlefields of the Overland Campaign. Now in Hell Itself he invites readers of the Emerging Civil War Series to join him in the Wilderness—one of the most storied battlefields of the entire Civil War.
Soldiers called it one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom”—the Wilderness of Virginia, seventy square miles of dense, second-growth forest known as “the dark, close wood.”
“A more unpromising theatre of war was never seen,” said another.
Yet here, in the spring of 1864, the Civil War escalated to a new level of horror.
Ulysses S. Grant, commanding all Federal armies, opened the campaign with a vow to never turn back. Robert E. Lee, commanding the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, moved into the Wilderness to block Grant’s advance. Immovable object intercepted irresistible force—and the Wilderness burst into flame.
With the forest itself burning around them, men died by the thousands. The armies bloodied each other without mercy and, at times, without any semblance of order. The brush grew so dense, and the smoke hung so thick, men could not see who stood next to them—or in front of them. “This, viewed as a battleground, was simply infernal,” a Union soldier later said.
It was, said another, “hell itself.”
Driven by desperation, duty, confusion, and fire, soldiers on both sides marveled that anyone might make it out alive.
For more than a decade, Chris Mackowski has guided visitors across the battlefields of the Overland Campaign. Now in Hell Itself he invites readers of the Emerging Civil War Series to join him in the Wilderness—one of the most storied battlefields of the entire Civil War.
Unavailable
Author
Chris Mackowski
Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., is the editor-in-chief of Emerging Civil War. He is a writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University and the historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania battlefield. He has authored or co-authored more than two dozen books on the Civil War.
Read more from Chris Mackowski
Hell Itself: The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, May 8–21, 1864 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Simply Murder: The Battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Battle of Jackson, Mississippi: May 14, 1863 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson: The Mortal Wounding of the Confederacy's Greatest Icon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hellmira: The Union's Most Infamous Civil War Prison Camp—Elmira, NY Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChancellorsville's Forgotten Front: The Battles of Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church, May 3, 1863 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fight Like the Devil: The First Day at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5That Furious Struggle: Chancellorsville and the High Tide of the Confederacy, May 1-4, 1863 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grant's Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Strike Them a Blow: Battle along the North Anna River, May 21-25, 1864 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDon't Give an Inch: The Second Day at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863—From Little Round Top to Cemetery Ridge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeizing Destiny: The Army of the Potomac's "Valley Forge" and the Civil War Winter that Saved the Union Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Summer of '63: Vicksburg & Tullahoma: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Battle Never Fought: The Mine Run Campaign, November 26 – December 2, 1863 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStay and Fight it Out: The Second Day at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, Culp’s Hill and the North End of the Battlefield Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTraces of the Bloody Struggle: The Civil War at Stevenson Ridge, Spotsylvania Court House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLone Star Valor: Texans of the Blue & Gray at Gettysburg Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Hell Itself
Related ebooks
Traces of the Bloody Struggle: The Civil War at Stevenson Ridge, Spotsylvania Court House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBloody Autumn: The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fight Like the Devil: The First Day at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bentonville: The Final Battle of Sherman and Johnston Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Little Short of Boats: The Battles of Ball's Bluff & Edwards Ferry, October 21–22, 1861 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar, Memory, and the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFredericksburg! Fredericksburg! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Strike Them a Blow: Battle along the North Anna River, May 21-25, 1864 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFields of Honor Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Attack at Daylight and Whip Them: The Battle of Shiloh, April 6–7, 1862 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of Brice's Crossroads Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Came Only to Die: The Battle of Nashville, December 15-16, 1864 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDetermined to Stand and Fight: The Battle of Monocacy, July 9, 1864 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don't Give an Inch: The Second Day at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863—From Little Round Top to Cemetery Ridge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of Fisher's Hill: Breaking the Shenandoah Valley's Gibraltar Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of Belmont: Grant Strikes South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gettysburg, Day Three Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grant's Left Hook: The Bermuda Hundred Campaign, May 5–June 7, 1864 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Single Blow: The Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Beginning of the American Revolution April 19, 1775 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Summer of ’63 Gettysburg: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShiloh, 1862 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Civil War at Perryville: Battling for the Bluegrass Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Battle of Okolona: Defending the Mississippi Prairie Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor, May 26 - June 5, 1864 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrant's Last Battle: The Story Behind the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
United States History For You
Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wright Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Sisters in Black: The Bizarre True Case of the Bathtub Tragedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Right Stuff Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Hell Itself
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
1 rating0 reviews