Exploring the most important 55 months in American history
Ulysses S. Grant orders a massive Federal assault on a salient in the line of Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. This results in some of the most savage fighting of the entire war and produces significant casualties.
Philip Sheridan embarks on a Federal cavalry raid intended to disrupt Confederate supply lines and destroy the famed command of Jeb Stuart. Sheridan engages the Confederates just a few miles outside Richmond, where Stuart is mortally wounded.
Ulysses S. Grant learns that his Federal Army of the Potomac has lost the race to Spotsylvania Court House to Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Grant approves a massed assault on a salient in Lee’s defense line, which results in more horrific casualties.
William T. Sherman’s three Federal armies begin their part of the grand offensive by moving into northern Georgia to confront Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate Army of Tennessee. Sherman plans to use maneuver to coax the Confederates out of their defenses and into the open where they can be destroyed.
Fighting rages a second day in the Wilderness as Ulysses S. Grant learns that Robert E. Lee would not be an easy foe to overcome.
The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia catches the Federal Army of the Potomac in the forbidding Wilderness. Both sides engage in fierce combat, with confusing and chaotic fighting in the dense brush marking the opening of the spring campaign.