Kyle,Hi all,
I’ve been on a bit of a late war (summer of 64 on) kick this past year. Started with Rhea’s Overland series and now I’m working my way through the Richmond-Petersburg
campaign.
As I was lookin for books on the R-P campaign I noticed that pickings were relatively slim. Especially when compared to reading material on early war engagements.
For my money 1864 is the most interesting year of the war (in both East and west). There’s certainly no shortage of pitched battles or tales of battlefield heroism (both north and south). Yet it seemingly attracts the least interest. Wondering if any of y’all had any thoughts as to why that was?
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
-Kyle
Like you, I also think 1864 was the most interesting year of the war. So much so that I started a Siege of Petersburg site called Beyond the Crater. As for reading material for the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, there is probably a little more than you think. Most of the offensives against those cities have book-length accounts, some more than one. I maintain a bibliography page for the campaign broken out by offensive and/or type. I think, obviously, a good portion of the people buying books on the war and interested in the war are Southerners, and they don't tend to focus on the part where the perception is their side has little to no chance left. Hindsight is 20/20. But if you start really looking at things, the perception on both sides in early August 1864 was that the South still had a real chance to win. They just needed to do enough damage to get McClellan elected, not win outright. The "gloss over everything in the East after Gettysburg until Appomattox" seems to have taken hold in the years after the war and succeeding generations just followed suit. I'm one of a group of people who focus on 1864-65. And the number of books seems to be growing as well.