This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place [Hardcover]

Mark L. Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2000

Even after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, the Civil War continued to be fought, and surrenders negotiated, on different fronts. The most notable of these occurred at Bennett Place, near Durham, North Carolina, when Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee to Union General William T. Sherman. In this first full-length examination of the end of the war in North Carolina, Mark Bradley traces the campaign leading up to Bennett Place.

Alternating between Union and Confederate points of view and drawing on his readings of primary sources, including numerous eyewitness accounts and the final muster rolls of the Army of Tennessee, Bradley depicts the action as it was experienced by the troops and the civilians in their path. He offers new information about the morale of the Army of Tennessee during its final confrontation with Sherman's much larger Union army. And he advances a fresh interpretation of Sherman's and Johnston's roles in the final negotiations for the surrender.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Bradley's book is readable, interesting, and informative.

Journal of American History

A remarkable book of painstaking research. Serious scholars of the Civil War will find This Astounding Close a valuable study.

On Point

Belongs on the shelf of every Civil War buff.

Blue & Gray

A well-documented and careful analysis. Bradley is to be commended for a well-written and impressively researched monograph.

Civil War History

A superb study that incorporates the best of new military history.

Civil War Book Review

From the Inside Flap

Drawing from a number of sources that reveal both Northern and Southern points of view, Bradley details of one of the last campaigns of the Civil War, in which the Army of Tennessee surrendered to Sherman at Bennett Place in North Carolina, weeks after the official surrender of Lee at Appomattox.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; 1st edition, edition (September 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807825654
• ISBN-13: 978-0807825655
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,738,962 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping portrait of the final days of the Army of Tennessee, October 6, 2000

By 

Chris Carter (Greensboro, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place (Hardcover)

Mark Bradley's second book is a worthy companion to his excellent book on Bentonville. This book takes a different approach, presenting the movements and subsequent surrender negotiations instead of the chaos of a pitched battle, but it works nontheless, infusing a different sort of drama and emotion. I found the descriptions of Sherman's army extremely interesting, and the fate of the Army of Tennessee was both moving and compelling. The book places the surrender of Johnston's army in its historical context, explaining the strong position that Johnston was negotiating from, and the possibility of uniting with Lee's army for another offensive, an event which worried Sherman greatly. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has read Bradley's Bentonville work, as this provides the rest of the story. The only negative comment is that I miss the incredible maps by Mark Moore, which are not present in this work. Otherwise, Mark Bradley continues his tradition of a very readable first hand account.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Companion to "Last Stand in the Carolinas!", May 4, 2004

By 

Matt Hering (Bartlett, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place (Hardcover)

Mark Bradley has written an excellent companion book to his "Last Stand in the Carolinas," which has currently gone out of print. In this volume, Mr. Bradley picks up where he left off, following Johnston and Sherman from Bentonville to the surrender of the Army of Tennessee at Durham, North Carolina. Bradley's writing is, as in his other book, great!

But missing from "This Astounding Close," are the excellent maps created the very skilled cartographer Mark Moore. The maps provided are not bad--they are actually quite good--but they could have been better. The small numbers of maps left me wanting more, especially ones detailing the smaller skirmishes taking place during the maneuvering in North Carolina. If the maps had been better and mpre plentiful, I would have given the book five starts instead of four.

Being from the South, I have always considered Sherman and his subordinates nothing short of the devil-incarnate. But from this book, I gained a new respect for these men and saw the softer side of them. Bradley depicts how John "Black Jack" Logan saved Raleigh from destruction at the hands of raged Federal troops intent on avenging Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Mr. Bradley also told of how lenient Sherman was toward the surrendering Confederate troops and toward the civilians of North Carolina, especially after the surrender. Sherman even offered Johnston and his troops much kinder terms than those given to Robert E. Lee at Appomattox! But Northern politicians saw these terms as too soft and evetually gave Johnston the same terms given to Lee.

This is a very good book; no doubt a great addition to my rapidly growing Civil War library. Before reading this volume, I knew next to nothing about Johnston's surrender at Durham, North Carolina, in the Bennet Farmhouse. If you are a Civil War buff get this book; if you are a military history buff, get this book! I got it, and am happy I did.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Johnston's Last Hurrah!, March 14, 2004

By 

Scott Bell (Jacksonville, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place (Hardcover)

The Civil War didn't officially end with General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. General Joe Johnston's Army of the South and General Kirby Smith's forces in the Trans-Mississippi still remained in the field.
This is the story of the situation in North Carolina facing Johnston and Union General William Sherman after the Battle of Bentonville. The author presents both sides of the story along with the political pressures from Richmond and Washington.
There is not an abundance of information about Johnston's eventual surrender of the Army of the South and other forces under his command. The author is a leading authority about the 1865 North Carolina Campaign and presents an entertaining, interesting and scholarly review of the events after Bentonville.