A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg, Volume 1

From the Crossing of the James to the Crater

By: A. Wilson Greene, Gary W. W. Gallagher - foreword

Narrated by: Paul Woodson

Length: 25 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War's longest and among its most complex. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee squared off for more than nine months in their struggle for Petersburg, the key to the Confederate capital at Richmond. Featuring some of the war's most notorious battles, the campaign played out against a backdrop of political drama and crucial fighting elsewhere, with massive costs for soldiers and civilians alike.

After failing to bull his way into Petersburg, Grant concentrated on isolating the city from its communications with the rest of the surviving Confederacy, stretching Lee's defenses to the breaking point. When Lee's desperate breakout attempt failed in March 1865, Grant launched his final offensives that forced the Confederates to abandon the city on April 2, 1865. A week later, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House.

Here, A. Wilson Greene opens his sweeping new three-volume history of the Petersburg Campaign, taking listeners from Grant's crossing of the James in mid-June 1864 to the fateful Battle of the Crater on July 30. Full of fresh insights drawn from military, political, and social history, A Campaign of Giants is destined to be the definitive account of the campaign. With new perspectives on operational and tactical choices by commanders, the experiences of common soldiers and civilians, and the significant role of the United States Colored Troops in the fighting, this audiobook is a must-listen for all those interested in the history of the Civil War.

©2018 The University of North Carolina Press (P)2019 Tantor

Only Confederates will enjoy this

Mr Greene has gone through numerous letters written in the Civil War looking for scathing, humiliating things written about U.S. Grant by Confederate soldiers. They appear to be chosen for how stupid they made Grant look. Of course he would not be popular with the opposing army.

He doesn't mention all the advantages of Lee's such as fighting in your well known, home turf, interior lines which gave him the opportunity to dig in before Grant's soldiers could get there, the number of soldiers it takes to remove one entrenched soldier, the use of slaves to do all the hard dirty work and yet they were not counted as Lee's troops, the help of the Virginian residents for Lee both in intelligence and supplies and stealth attacks on Grant's army by locals not in uniform. And the fact that Lee was always afraid to fight it out, ….And the crappy cause he was fighting for.

instead, he hid. Grant's job was equivalent to extracting a snake from a hole. I'm sorry for the author. It's obvious that the wrong side won.This is not balanced. it is not fair. He seems to still wish that Lee had won and that slavery was still the rule of the day.

I'm angry that I bought this book. I am dumping it. Save your money.

Confederate Lost Cause Propaganda in Disguise

This book exemplifies contemporary Lost Cause narratives. Mountains of details that are always interpreted to fit a Pro-Confederate perspective. Somehow the author even manages to put a positive spin on Confederates' mass executions of captured black soldiers by saying that the black soldiers were the first to refuse quarter and that Union soldiers participated in the atrocities. And this is just one glaring example among many. Save your brain cells for something more deserving of your time.