Hell Itself

The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864 (Emerging Civil War Series)

By: Chris Mackowski

Narrated by: Bob Neufeld

From the award-winning Emerging Civil War series.

Soldiers called it one of the “waste places of nature” and “a region of gloom” - the wilderness of Virginia, 70 square miles of dense second-growth forest known as “the dark, close wood”.

“A more unpromising theater 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 followers of the Emerging Civil War series to join him in the wilderness - one of the most storied battlefields of the entire Civil War.

©2016 Savs Beatie (P)2019 Savas Beatie

Quick, Satisfying Read

The information in this series is compelling and rich. Mr. Neufeld, the narrator has a classic style and holds the listener from start to finish. I highly recommend checking out his other reads as well. All in all this is a Civil War series that gives details you won't read in other books, and it's done in a way that makes it an easy read in one setting.