Synopses & Reviews
It was 1865 and the Army of the Potomac was on the move in front of Petersburg, at White Oak Road and Five Forks, outmaneuvering and outfighting a beleaguered enemy. In this extraordinary memoir, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the Fifth Corps records the dramatic final acts of the Civil War: Sheridan's rise, Warren's fall, and the slow, inexorable stalking of Lee's forces across the battle-scarred countryside. With rare eloquence, Chamberlain describes the troop movements, the clash and chaos of battle, and the soul of a Union army under the confident new command of U. S. Grant. Here is an unmatched portrait of war's end from the moment a Confederate staff officer crossed the lines bearing a white flag to the cold gray morning at Appomattox that sealed the South's defeat and sent two armies home to a nation changed forever.
Introduction by James M. McPherson, Professor of American History at Princeton University and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom.