The Last Gasp of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia: The Siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign

*Includes pictures*Includes accounts of the fighting written by generals and soldiers on both sides*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading*Includes a table of contents“I have seen your despatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible." – President Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant, August 1864After the last major pitched battle of the Overland Campaign was fought at Cold Harbor in early June, Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac had suffered more casualties during the campaign than Robert E. Lee had in his entire Army of Northern Virginia at the start of May. Understandably, the American public was shocked by the carnage, and to this day Grant has been accused of being a butcher, but attrition had become a vital war aim for the North, and Grant remained undeterred.Refusing to attack Lee in frontal assaults, and aware that Lee dared not venture