Description: Early in 1864, after three long years of bloody and horrifying civil war, Ulysses S. Grant took command of all Union forces engaged against the Confederacy. Grim and ruthless in his determination, Grant set out to grind the enemy into submission with superior numbers, equipment, and firepower. It would take a year for Grant's strategy to succeed - the final and most murderous year of an already savage struggle. In The Road to Appomattox, Robert Hendrickson re-creates that final year. Through the reminiscences of participants, as well as contemporary diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts, Hendrickson brings those bitter days to life with graphic depictions of some of the most desperate actions of the war: an eerie account of the Second Battle of the Wilderness, fought among the skeletal remains of those fallen in the first battle; heart-wrenching descriptions of the slaughter of thousands of Union troops in fruitless human-wave assaults at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor; and the crushing defeat of Lee's bedraggled army in its last desperate attempt to break free of Union pursuit just outside of Appomattox. Hendrickson fashions striking portraits of many important travelers on the road to Appomattox, including the pugnacious little general Phil Sheridan; J. E. B. Stewart, the quintessential Rebel cavalry officer; and the dashing but hapless Ambrose Burnside, whose daring Petersburg mine scheme might have won the war in dramatic fashion but ended in unspeakable disaster. Separating fact from rumor, the author reveals the truth behind Grant's legendary bouts with alcohol and explains how Lee, the consummate Southern gentleman and an opponent of slavery, could fight so fiercely for a causein which he did not believe.

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