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The Spotsylvania Campaign, edited by Gary W. Gallagher, Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1998, $29.95.

After having taken one another’s measure in the Wilderness on May 5 and 6, 1864, Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee put their wills–and the endurance of their soldiers–to the ultimate test in and around Spotsylvania Court House. There, the irresistible force of Grant’s Army of the Potomac crashed against Lee’s immovable Army of Northern Virginia for two of the Civil War’s bloodiest weeks. Author and editor Gary W. Gallagher’s collection of essays presents the campaign, its battles and its place in history from a variety of viewpoints.

Jon Guttman