A Campaign of Giants--The Battle for Petersburg

Volume 1: From the Crossing of the James to the Crater

By A. Wilson Greene

Foreword by Gary W. Gallagher

728 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 34 maps, notes, bibl., index

  • E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-3858-4
    Published: April 2018
  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-3857-7
    Published: June 2018
  • Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-8836-7
    Published: February 2025
  • E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-8155-7
    Published: April 2018

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Awards & distinctions

2019 Distinguished Book Award in American History, Society for Military History

Daniel M. & Marilyn W. Laney Book Prize, Austin Civil War Roundtable

2019 Richard Barksdale Harwell Award, Atlanta Civil War Round Table

Emerging Civil War Book Award

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 readers 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 book offers essential reading for all those interested in the history of the Civil War.

About the Authors

A. Wilson Greene is the former president of the Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier and author of The Final Battles of the Petersburg Campaign.
For more information about A. Wilson Greene, visit the Author Page.

Gary W. Gallagher is John L. Nau III Professor of History at the University of Virginia and author or editor of numerous books, including Lee and His Army in Confederate History and The Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864.
For more information about Gary W. Gallagher, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"A Campaign of Giants stands among the most authoritative and engagingly presented Civil War studies ever written."—Wall Street Journal

“A wonderfully detailed and judiciously interpreted overview of the first stages of the campaign.”—Journal of Southern History

"Greene peels away the layers of General Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign . . . to expose the realities that made the Civil War progressively more horrible in its lethality and impact. . . . The diligent investigative discipline of the author produced a work which demonstrates, once again, that a thoroughly examined subject like the Civil War can still yield fresh treasures of knowledge."—Civil War Book Review

"An incredibly detailed, masterfully written work that should serve as the definitive account of the first two months of the Siege of Petersburg."—H-Net Reviews

"In its capacious approach, [A Campaign of Giants] rebuts charges of romanticization—it is hard to come away Greene's treatment of the grisly combat in the Crater as someone overly fond of war—but at its most fundamental level, Greene analyzes the campaign's participants as human individuals who fought, fled, failed, suffered, and sometimes triumphed."—Journal of the Civil War Era

"Essential reading for future scholars of the Petersburg campaign."—Civil War Monitor