Virginia Books

And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign May - June 1864 written by Mark Grimsley is a book about the massive operation called the Virginia Campaign about ow Ulyses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee saw the war. But, this is not just a battle book, it is a book with the political context of the 1864 presidential election.

Not only the election, but appraises the motivation of soldiers, appreciates the impact of the North's sea power advantage and questions convential interpretations; andexamines the interconnections among the major battles, subsidiary offenives, and raids.

The Contents of the book is as follows:

Campaign Plans and Politics
The Wilderness
"Grant Is Beating His Head aganist a Wall"
The Collapse of Grant's Peripheral Strategy
"Lee's Army Is Really Whipped"
"The Hardest Campaign"
"It Seemed Like Murder"
The Campaign's Significance

"The art of war," maintained Lt. Gen. Ulyses S. Grant, "is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike at him as hard as you can and as often as you can, and keep moving on." Grant the bludgeoner, Lee the master of maneuver were, in reality, the two commanders were almost identical in style.

Grant took over the hard luck Army of the Potomac and Lee had his Army of Northern Virginia and that ensured that the spring campaign of 1864 would pit the Civil War's two most successful generals against one another in a duel that became legendary.

The fighting was not restricted to a duel between Grant and Lee, either. In order to maximize his chance of success, Grant put into motion virtually every Union soldier in hte eastern theater. As a result, the struggle between the main armies... eventually dubbed the Overland campaign... was only part of a larger offensive that included major expeditions in western and southeastern Virginia as well as numrous impromptu raids aimed at the Confederate transportation infrastructure. Grant and Lee not only had to take these maneuvers into account, they often supervisedthem as well. It is therefore better to think, as they did themselves, in terms of a single, massive Virginia campaign of spring 1864.

Grant confronted Lee with four subsidiary offensives in addition to the Army of the Potomac's main advance: two in southwestern Virginia against Confederate salworks, lead mines, and railroads; a third in the Shenandoah Valley under Major General Franz Sigel; and a fourth in the James River estuary under Major General Benjamin F. Butler. Grant intended these lesser offensives to divert strength from Lee's army and, if possible, to achieve significant results on their own. He had particularly high expectations of Butler, believing that Butler could threaten Richmond, interdict Confederate communications with the Deep South, and help place Lee at a ruinous disadvantage. But by shifting their outnumbered forces adroitly, the Confederates thwarted Grant's offensive at every turn, defeating Sigel and Butler and administrating sharp checks to the Army of the Potomac in the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, the North Anna and Cold Harbor.

You really get a feel for how the Virginia Campaign was fought in this book making it a definate addintion to you American History library. The narrative is easy going and the insights are engrossing, making for an informative and educational read.

Mark Grimsley does not seek to break new ground in "And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May - June 1864". Up front he states: "This is primarily a work of synthesis. As such, my foremost thanks are due to the authors of the specialized studies on which it is based." These specialized studies are, either through their daunting size or their limited availability, unfamiliar to most persons interested in the Civil War. Mark Grimsley has performed a valuable service for such readers by drawing upon those narrow analyses to craft a comprehensive and lucid narrative about the Overland Campaign and its associated operations. In less than 250 pages of narrative text, Grimsley covers the fundamentals of not only such grand battles as the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, but also Butler's fumbled thrust towards Richmond, cavalry raids in West Virginia, and fighting in the Shenandoah Valley. Moreover, he relates the pace of military matters to the political background (1864 was a Presidential election year in the North) and to state of civilian morale.

In discussing combat, Grimsley includes sufficient first-hand detail so the reader does not lose sight of the ultimate reality that the contending armies were made up of living, breathing, dying individual soldiers. Nonetheless, the book's primary focus is on the senior commanders. Grimsley states in the preface that he "evaluated the principal leaders as sympathetically as possible, always bearing in mind that they were intelligent men who operated under extraordinary conditions and pressure ... I have encountered few historical actors - even such perennial goats as Ben Butler - for whom I could not muster at least some respect." It seems that Franz Sigel, justifiably in my opinion, fell outside the author's range of sympathy. In writing of the battle of New Market, Grimsley quotes William C. Davis with favor about that hapless officer: "Franz Sigel was not just an incompetent; he was a fool."

The results of these several weeks of combat in the early summer of 1864 are presented by Grimsley as a mixture of limited success and deeper failure for both sides. Grant sought to destroy Lee's army, but he only succeeded in depriving Lee of the initiative while both armies battled each other into stumbling weariness. Lee tired to drive his enemies back from their invasion, but only managed to resist destruction while being driven back to the static defense of Richmond. In an absorbing extension of his analysis of the results of the campaign, Grimsley discusses the historical memory of these battles as filtered through the Lost Cause mythology of the post-war South, which portrays Lee as the flawless soldier of genius and Grant as the merciless butcher who wins by numbers alone. Grimsley rightly exposes such thinking as shallow and inadequate.

In his acknowledgements section, Grimsley pays special tribute to Gordon Rhea who has, thus far, published five excellent volumes on the Overland Campaign. The influence of Rhea's work is clearly evident on Mark Grimsley's book (Rhea's most recent book, "Cold Harbor", was unfortunately published too late to influence "And Keep Moving On"; if it had been available, I believe Grimsley would have rejected tired conventional wisdom about Union casualty rates during that battle and instead would have followed Rhea's illuminating evaluation of the subject), but even an enthusiastic reader of Rhea's histories can find much of value in "And Keep Moving On." The narrative is delivered in an engaging, persuasive manner, moving briskly towards its conclusion without a feeling of being rushed. This volume has found a permanent spot on my crowded Civil War bookshelves, and I can only hope that Mark Grimsley some day may write a similar volume about the Petersburg campaign that followed.

This is not the ultimate book on the overland campaign as Rhea's series of books from the Wilderness through Cold harbor captures all the detail of troop movements, decisions and action along with great documentation. But Grimsley is the big picture book of the overall campaign explaining the global strategies of Grant's attack plan for Virginia with coordinated raids (Sigel, Averell, Crook) along with a major move on Petersburg (Butler) while concentrating on Lee. Excellent short bios on the participants and Grimsley get sraight to it as why actions failed or succeeded. There is a remarkable chapter after the North Anna that covers a very serious side as the author details how the casualties fared as the armies continued to move, he covers the effect of fatigue, battle stress, the fate of prisoners that all grips the reality of war. A very fascinating, and appropriate account of the human effects of war on the participants. The book also comes with very adequate maps and the campaigns are given in fast moving detail. Even after reading Rhea's great books, as I have, I have enjoyed Grimsley's book that virtually stands back and looks at the action and movements of the commanders in broad strokes while explaining their decisions and reactions. For example, after understanding Grant's odd command structure of directly taking charge of Sheridan and Burnside's corps while Meade commands the Army of the Potomac, one understands how stressful and difficult it was for Meade to coordinate his attack plans. If you are going to throw one book in your knapsack for a field tour of the Overland Campaign, this is a great book to read and bring as a reference. Its going with me on my Pamplin Spring tour of the Wilderness through the North Anna this weekend.

The Bermuda Hundred campaign -- a May 1864 attempt to seize Richmond by 33,000 Federal troops under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler -- has always tended to be caricatured by the Civil War historians who cover it. The usual narrative is that Butler had a great chance to grab the Confederate capital, blew it through world-class incompetence, and wound up retreating into the neck of the Bermuda Hundred peninsula between the James and Appomattox Rivers, where supposedly it was as neutralized as if it had been "in a bottle strongly corked."

Robertson could have followed the old bash-Butler interpretation, but instead set aside the conventional story and looked at the campaign with the eye of a superb operational-level military historian. (He's on the permanent faculty of the Combat Studies Institute at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.) While avoiding the opposite error of turning Butler into some kind of misunderstood genius shafted by his superiors and subordinates, Robertson patiently delineates the flaws in U.S. Grant's instructions to Butler, the frictions created by an awkward command relationship with Butler's two corps commanders -- neither of whom he'd met, much less worked with, until the eve of the campaign -- and the modest but genuine achievements of Butler's offensive. He also does a nice job of handling the Confederate side of the hill as well.

This was a wonderful resource for me when I was writing And Keep Moving On: The Virginia Campaign, May-June 1864, and I heartily recommend it.

This is such an outstanding account of a Civil War campaign that I try to reread it every year or two. Aside from
being a great account of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign,
it is such a welcome change from so mant of the books currently being sold under the description of Civil War history, when they are in reality just junk. This is basically
a "how to" book on how to write and bring to life a Civil War
campaign, especially welcome in that it deals with a relatively obscure campaign in 1864 Virginia. Buy this book!

Wonderful description of the Union successes in almost capturing the little protected Petersburg and the incredulous defense by Confederate forces against huge odds. This book has details on the campaign that actually starts from the Suffolk area where Union cavalry penetrate the lightly defended no man's land southeast of Petersburg outside of Suffolk that even today is lightly populated. The Union cavalry penetrate through small towns like Ivor on route 460 and Windsor heading all the way to the Weldon railroad south of Petersburg. This raid rivals the Grierson raid made during that was made during the Vicksburg campaign. The audaciousness of the Union cavalry
led by Kautz in a series of raids below and above Petersburg rivals Stuarts trip around McClellan in 1862. This is excellent writing as Robertson writes in efficient prose about the early aspects of the Petersburg campaign that has not gotten enough print. The book follows Pickett's stressed out attempts to protect Petersburg with just a few thousand troops and his physically collapsing as soon as Beuraguard arrives to take command. The book also describes the fluttered attempt by Butler's surprise move on Petersburg that fails only because Generals like William Smith stop their attack impressed by Confederate forces that establish a bold front with small numbers, numbers so small that Smith could have steam rolled them and entered Petersburg. The book also describes Beauregard's attempts to get Lee's attention to get more troops and the description of the strained relationship between the two. Very well written description of the Confederate defense of Drewery's Bluff on the James (a wonderful tour stop today) and the counter attack along the Bermuda 100 that seals Butler's forces on the Peninsula as a "cork in a bottle" as Grant was alleged to have said. The author makes a good point that Grant's continued attack of Lee at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania may also have been to divert Confederate pressure and attention north away from Butler to protect Butler's forces allowing an opportunity for victory. The defense of Petersburg is very exciting as the Confederates thin defenses and response forces barely held on for modest reinforces defeating the Union attack. It's truly a miracle that the Confederates held on. This compact book tells the story rapidly but is well written with an easy to read style.

The Virginia Civil War Battles and Leaders Series appears to be underappreciated. The series is excellent and all of the books I have seen from it are first-rate; I currently own 4 books and have leafed through many others. They also represent the only book-length accounts of some battles.

The Battle of Cloyds Mountain is a great example of the quality of the series. It details the events of a relatively small campaign that occurred in the western portion of Virginia during the spring of 1864. The campaign was launched by the Union with the goals of destroying part of the Virginia and Tennessee railroad and the Confederate saltworks at Saltville. The main battle of the campaign took place near Cloyds Mountain. The result was a Union victory with 688 Federal casualties and 538 Confederate casualties.

The book is very well written and easy to follow. McManus provides a balanced treatment to both sides and clearly presents the events seemingly without bias. 7 maps are provided which are of very high quality. I strongly recommend this book to Civil War buffs. This is likely to be the only account of this campaign to be written for the foreseeable future.

Howard McManus discovered and researched this forgotten Southwest Virginia battlefield. Before his research, even the location of the battlefield was unknown. This interesting battle deserves more attention than it has gotten. Not only is McManus a thorough researcher, he can write also.

A terrific account of a very often overlooked Civil War battle. Quite detailed but still manages to be a good read.

This book is great. when we read the book, we find the new possibility.But It is not perfect.He said, Christianity is not seperated from contemporary phiiosophy.Therefore We who believe in God can expoud to the phiiosopher who deny God severely. I respect him to try speaking the the phiiosopher .You,too may assent.

This small work of Tillich's is one of his later publications; deriving from a lecture series in the 1950s, it shows in very short order the combination of Tillich's philosophical and psychological ideas coupled with his view on the authority of biblical scripture in a Christian context.

Tillich states that if humans enter the levels of personal existence which have been rediscovered by depth psychology, there is a collective unconscious in which we participate. This draws together all of our ancestors. Remember here that Tillich speaks in other contexts of the Ground of Being, so ideas such as this one make a consistent sense.

Tillich continues to be criticised for the philosophical language he uses, how radical a departure it seems to a more scripturally-based faith (students in my classes perennially complain of this). However, Tillich takes on the challenge here to look at this contrast in language, arguing that in fact it is impossible to separate out the language and meaning of philosophy from the imagery contained in the biblical texts.

Tillich's overarching idea through his entire body of work is to reconstitute the importance of theology and faith into a culture, academic and secular, who have been drawn away by seemingly more objective, rational enterprises such as science. The Enlightenment project of rationalism over all led to the questioning of orthodoxy -- Tillich maintains the questioning, but draws back in the ideas of God and biblical witness to religion in the terms of the modern academy. Nowhere is that project more clear than in this text.

Tillich means for the connection between biblical religion and philosophy to connect at a personal level. He states that from pimitive religion to the present time, religions have had a personalistic level at the deepest heart of the experience. 'Whenever the holy is experienced, the person-to-person character of this experience is obvious.' However, this changes when considering the Ground of Being, and Being Itself. As Tillich states, when we talk, it is to somebody, but we participate in something. This distinction becomes key to Tillich's overall analysis.

In the last chapters, Tillich examines different ideas of ontology versus the subjective and objective sides of biblical religion. Tillich's final paragraph encapsulates a classic sense of Tillichian analysis -- faith comprises both itself and its negation. Tillich clearly states that there is no particular philosophical framework necessary for salvation -- neither Plato nor Aristotle, neither Kant nor Hegel, and so forth -- but that there is an ontological question implied. The God of the philosophers is the same as the God of the bible (Tillich proclaims, contradicting Pascal).

Many Christians are still unconvinced of the value or necessity of philosophy in religious thinking; indeed, many are positively suspicious. Tillich's work helps to explain the value of connecting the two, even if one does not draw the same conclusions. This is a very short text (a mere 85 pages) that can be read most likely in a single sitting, and represents a good introduction or a good refresher to some key Tillichian ideas.

Paul say's it best in the first chapter of this book..."Religion is a function of the human mind, it is a futile attempt to reach God, it moves from man toward God, while revelation moves from God to man and it's first work is to confound man's religious aspirations."
This sums up the essence of Paul Tillich and his own personal search for Ultimate Reality...but there is so much more!

Very impressed. I am glad I read it again after all these years. The story of the Mad Man is very funny. I was cracking up while reading it.

Did you know that free schooling was only briefly offered in Nigeria? There's a poignant story about it here.

I learned a lot about Nigeria from these stories. Sometimes, the stories seemed to end a little too abruptly, but I guess that's part of the story format: it has to end sooner than a short novel, anyway.

Mr. Achebe is a fine storyteller and he has many interesting things to say about the people and customs of Nigeria. I recommend this book, but only after first reading his classic novel about 19th century Ibo tribe people, Things Fall Apart.

After reading these stories, I was both attracted to Nigeria and repelled by it (I've never been to Africa). Achebe does a good job of capturing the ambivalence aroused by Nigeria's exotic nature (to Americans) mixed with its societal dysfunctions.

Diximus.

This is an impressive collection of short stories that covers a twenty-year period of Achebe's writing. They also cover a period of history in his native Nigeria that spans from the late colonial period to the Biafran war. In them Achebe explores various aspects of a predominant theme in his work, i.e. tradition vs. modernism in his country (as introduced by British colonial administration). The various stories offer glimpses into the lives of people from various classes and walks of life. Achebe has a concise and eloquent writing style; he has an almost singular talent for making very pertinent observations in an extremely pithy fashion. Thus, for example, in the few pages of a story like "Dead Man's Path," Achebe brings to life the problems which ensue from the drive for quick modernization, the desire to adhere to tradition and the hypocrisy of Nigeria's colonial administrators. Also impressive is Achebe's mastery of narrative styles, i.e. first person, omiscient, etc. These stories can be read on their own, or as a supplement to Achebe's similarly powerful novels.

This book has a lot of pictures of black glass collectables from common to unusual pieces. The descriptions are informative even though the prices seem to be on the low side. I enjoyed the Company Histories with Illustations (ads from catalogs, etc.) All in all a very good book for black glass collectors.

This is the first Black Glass reference books we have purchased, but in comparison with other collectors books I vote this the number one for pictures, prices, and descriptions.

Books on nearly every kind of glass, from Fenton to Depression, abound for collectors; but here's one that stands out from the crowd: The Black Glass Encyclopedia, a price guide and history for over eight hundred different animals, bowls, candlesticks, plates, stemware and more. 19th and 20th century black glass was produced by a range of firms and makers: all are represented here, with manufacturer catalog copy accompanying company history, production features, identification and values. So many collectors' glass titles focus on the same types that it's refreshing to see something truly unique in the genre.

This is a truly wonderful book. Todd describes the homes of many of the people who participated in the Bloomsbury group, in addition to the complex interrelationships of the people involved, their parties and their artwork. She is one of the most focused biographers I have read: always interesting, always to the point. Considering the number of people she has to write about, it is amazing that she never strays from her focus. The book is beautifully designed and illustrated. It is a book that I will go back to over and over.

Bloomsbury at Home is a welcome addition to the bibliography of titles about the very interesting, influential and eccentric group of artists who flourished in England and France during the early part of the twentieth century. These multitalented poets, writers, painters and thinkers lived life enthusiastically and shared ideas, activities and loves with each other and the world. Pamela Todd's extended essay on the Bloomsburyites, including Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant captures their individuality, and sometimes irrationality, while celebrating their devotion to freedom of thought. The really spectacular and original contribution of Bloomsbury at Home, however, comes with the reproduction of a number of paintings and drawings by the Bloomsbury group, which are otherwise difficult to find gathered in one place. This book is a treasured and inexpensive addition to my library of literary and artistic movements, and I highly recommend it to others interested in the relationship of the visual and literary arts to modern society before the Second World War.

Bloomsbury at Home is a welcome addition to the bibliography of titles about the very interesting, influential and eccentric group of artists who flourished in England and France during the early part of the twentieth century. These multitalented poets, writers, painters and thinkers lived life enthusiastically and shared ideas, activities and loves with each other and the world. Pamela Todd's extended essay on the Bloomsburyites, including Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant captures their individuality, and sometimes irrationality, while celebrating their devotion to freedom of thought. The really spectacular and original contribution of Bloomsbury at Home, however, comes with the reproduction of a number of paintings and drawings by the Bloomsbury group, which are otherwise difficult to find gathered in one place. This book is a treasured and inexpensive addition to my library of literary and artistic movements, and I highly recommend it to others interested in the relationship of the visual and literary arts to modern society before the Second World War.

This book keep you up with drama and you never know where it will take you

Bound by Honor was a very good book especially for a first novel. I loved the characters and I loved the setting. The characters had integrity and the setting was true to the period and location. I would recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in ancient european histories.

It was really interesting to read about the Celts in Ancient Britain and I love anything about Ancient Rome. The characters were easy to relate to and show real human emotion and feeling. The book is exciting to read, with battles and gladiators and human suffering yet it is moral and uplifting. On a recent trip to Rome walking through some of the ancient ruins, brought to life in my mind characters from the book. It is a great book - I'm proud to have it on my book shelf. I would highly recommed it to anyone.

Book arrived much more quickly than I expected...especially it being over the holidays. Great information. A lot of recognizable wineries, close too! Good purchase.

Elisabeth Frater's lovely travel guide is great for both residents and visitors. I have lived in Northern Virginia for 13 years and don't even drink alcohol, but I found this book to be useful. Frater gives clear, concise information, but also offers opinions. You hear the facts about each winery, but you also here the stories behind each one.

I have enjoyed living in this area much more after using Frater's book to plan weekend trips. Her book was invaluable when family came to visit recently.

Comprehensive review of the wineries in Virginia and Maryland. Describes how each of the wineries got started and a bit about the owners, growers, and/or winemakers. Also offers a brief summary of the wines produced. Includes sidebar-type sections on such topics as individual varietals, wine festivals, and competitions.

A wonderful resource if you like weekend getaways, beautiful farms, and, of course, sipping wine! Indispensable for budding regional wine connoisseurs and casual travelers alike.

Description from the book back cover:

A marriage of inconvenience ... Matthew Ransom had thought nothing could destroy his star-crossed love for beautiful Perri Stone - until the night she left town without a word. Twelve years later, Perri returned with no explanations, and they were forced into a marriage of convenience - yet Matt vowed he would not let love rule his heart again. Perri knew she couldn't expect Matt's trust, but when passion exploded on their wedding night, she hoped they could salvage what they'd had years ago. And now pregnant with Matt's child, she realized there was only one thing she could do to save their future - tell yesteryear's secrets before it was too late!

A love story in which two lives are deeply affected by the family hatreds and misunderstandings in a small Oklahoma town. The author does a masterful job of character portrayals, descriptive language, and in bringing this novel to an exciting and satisfying conclusion.

Virginia Dove does a good job of portraying people and places and weaving them together into a satisfying story. The book is intelligent and sensual. The reader is easily caught up in the story of the main characters and is able to empathize with them and their motivations. I look forward to reading more stories from this author.