Not War But Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 [Paperback]

Ernest B. Furgurson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 14, 2001

Ernest Furgurson, author of Ashes of Glory and Chancellorsville 1863, brings his talents to a pivotal and often neglected Civil War battle–the fierce, unremitting slaughter at Cold Harbor, Virginia, which ended the lives of 10,000 Union soldiers.

In June of 1864, the Army of the Potomac attacked heavily entrenched Confederate forces outside of Richmond, hoping to break the strength of Robert E. Lee and take the capital. Facing almost certain death, Union soldiers pinned their names to their uniforms in the forlorn hope that their bodies would be identified and buried. Furgurson sheds new light on the personal conflicts that led to Grant’s worst defeat and argues that it was a watershed moment in the war. Offering a panorama rich in detail and revealing anecdotes that brings the dark days of the campaign to life, Not War But Murder is historical narrative as compelling as any novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Doing an end run around Thomas Rhea's three-volume analysis of the Wilderness Campaign, journalist and historian Furgurson (Ashes of Glory; Chancellorsville 1863) addresses the climax of the operation: the Union attack on the Confederate entrenchments at Cold Harbor, Va., on June 3, 1864. Instead of breaking through to Richmond, the reinforced Army of the Potomac lost over 10,000 men, most of them in a single morning. Confederates called it the easiest victory of the war. In the North, Cold Harbor confirmed Grant's reputation as a butcher heedless of casualtiesAan image that endured until very recently. Furgurson, however, fixes primary responsibility for the debacle on convoluted command arrangements that left Gen. George Meade in direct command of the Army of the Potomac, but had Commander-in-Chief Grant in the field looking over his shoulder. Meade, increasingly resentful at being eclipsed, took fewer and fewer pains in planning the details of operations. The result was a haphazard attack on Confederate troops who had become masters at field entrenchment. Furgurson concludes that Lee's skillful handling of his smaller army maximized Union mistakes throughout the Wilderness Campaign, and led to his last great victory at Cold Harbor. This book does not prove the point, but it does make a solid case that will impress scholarsAand it does so in prose so direct and compelling that even those without a previous interest in the Civil War are sure to be drawn in. Fergurson's engagement with the people he writes about comes through in every line, making one of the most wrenching incidents of the war grimly immediate. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

On June 3, 1864, the Union Second, Sixth, and Eighteenth Corps assaulted Confederate breastworks at Cold Harbor outside Richmond, VA. The resulting bloodbath amounted to U.S. Grant's worst defeat and "Bobby" Lee's final great victory. In his latest book, native Virginian and Baltimore Sun correspondent Furgurson (Chancellorsville, 1863) vividly retells the well-known story of how the friction between Grant and his insecure direct subordinate, George Meade, poisoned the Army of the Potomac's whole chain of command. By contrast, he depicts Lee as a commander beset by poor health and impossible logistical problems who brilliantly deployed his meager forces and soundly thrashed his overconfident adversary, thereby saving the rebel capital and extending an unwinnable war by nearly a year. The book is rich in word pictures and engaging anecdotes if not in untilled history. Furgurson considers the wounded left to suffer with the dead between the lines while Lee and Grant quibble over protocols of recovery; the disastrous affect of poor maps and impassable terrain on the Federal assault; and Grant's immediate need to bring Lincoln a battlefield victory before the 1864 presidential election. Furgurson's contribution is his evocative retelling of a great American military tragedy. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-John Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Athens
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (August 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679781390
• ISBN-13: 978-0679781394
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #247,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Civil War writing at its finest, June 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Not War but Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 (Hardcover)

Ernest B. Furgurson has proven that Walt Whitman was wrong. The "good gray poet" once said the real Civil War would never get into the books. "Not War But Murder: Cold Harbor 1864" is about as close to the reality and horror of that struggle as we are likely to get. I absolutely defy anyone to read the opening paragraph of the Prologue without reading the book to its end. I recommend it not only to everyone interested in the Civil War but to everyone who admires brilliant writing. This book is not only military history at its best, but it is far more than than military history because of the complex moral, philosophical and pyschological questions that it raises and with which it deals. With "Not War But Murder," Furgurson, who has already written two fine Civil War books, joins the ranks of our most distinguished historians of that perilous time.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Information, October 19, 2000

By 

Grant Fritchey (MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Not War but Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 (Hardcover)

This book was a wonderful read. The author presented the information in a clear manner. There were plenty of maps to make clear the events on the battlefield. He also had a good number of quotes, some very entertaining, from participants.

However, I did not give the book five stars because of a shortcoming I felt while reading it. Cold Harbor is, without doubt, the worst mistake of Grant's carreer (OK, after running for President, but I meant his military carreer). The author goes into why this occurred quite ably. His conclusion, unfortunately, falls back on the old saw, "Robert E. Lee was great. Grant stunk." The funny thing is, he shows both generals in the book in ways opposite to his conclusion. Lee was very lucky in a number of the events the way they occurred. That had nothing to do with his abilities. Grant quite nimbly picked his way out of traps Lee set and out-manouvered Lee on a couple of occasions. All this is presented in the book.

So, for all those that worship at the Temple Lee, you will agree with this author. For those looking for good history, you'll agree with this author.

To my knowledge, three armies surrendered during the Civil War. Grant received two of them personally. That hardly sounds like a loser and a bad general.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid narrative about a famous, but little studied battle, June 10, 2000

By 

Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Not War but Murder: Cold Harbor 1864 (Hardcover)

Cold Harbor is a name familiar to everyone interested in the American Civil War. It has come to symbolize the terrible nature of warfare that had began with dreams of glory and had been transformed into the horrible futility of attacks against entrenchments. Strangely, however, the Cold Harbor itself has attracted little study in comparison with such early battles as Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. To my knowledge Ernest Furguson's "Not War but Murder: Cold Harbor 1864" is only the second book-length narrative of the battle ever to have been published. Furguson carefully examines the events from all viewpoints: Union and Confederate, commanding generals and foot soldiers. He has crafted an absorbing story which, although focusing on the grand, doomed assault of June 3, does full justice to the events before and after while the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia confronted one another near the Confederate capitol of Richmond.

Furguson lays the blame for the lop-sided defeat, accurately I believe, at the feet of US Grant, overall commander of the Union troops, and of George Meade, his principal subordinate in actual command of the Army of the Potomac. Grant failed badly in his understanding of the state of morale and combat strength not only of his foes, but also of his own depleted army. And Meade, it seems, allowed the battle to proceed without control or coordination due to a fit of pique engendered by his treatment in the press. Grant also deservedly receives strong criticism for the way he handled truce negotiations which would have allowed rescue of wounded soldiers trapped between lines after the failed attack, although here Lee too wins no marks for compassion.

I have only one real criticism of Furguson's account of Cold Harbor (and it is a fairly small criticism): I believe that Furguson overstates the significance of what happened at Cold Harbor, particularly the famous disastrous assault of June 3 which resulted in perhaps 7000 Union casualties against probably fewer than 1500 Confederates. He blames the subsequent failure of the Union army to capture Petersburg upon a "Cold Harbor syndrome" reluctance to attack fortifications and depicts the June 3 attack as destroying the battlefield power and morale of his army. In fact, Cold Harbor and the doomed attack was really only the culminating act in the devastating Overland Campaign which had already taken the Army of the Potomac (and the Army of Northern Virginia) through the Wilderness and Spotsylvania battles. The Union losses during the June 3 assault were only a small fraction of the total casualties during the campaign and the Army of the Potomac by the time of Cold Harbor was already exhibiting fatigue and loss of morale and by then had learned caution in attacking entrenchments. Whether or not the June 3 attack was made, it seems that the speedy capture of Petersburg may have already been beyond Grant's grasp.

This small criticism aside, I would strongly recommend "Not War but Murder" to anyone interested in the grim realities of combat during the closing year of the American Civil War. It is a vivid study of a battle more famous than understood.