Campaigning With Grant [Illustrated Edition]

Includes Civil War Map and Illustrations Pack – 224 battle plans, campaign maps and detailed analyses of actions spanning the entire period of hostilities.

In 1863 Horace Porter, then a captain, met Ulysses S. Grant as Grant commenced the campaign that would break the Confederate siege at Chattanooga. After a brief stint in Washington, Porter rejoined Grant, who was now in command of all Union forces, and served with him as a staff aide from April 1864 until the end of the war. He accompanied Grant into battle in the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg campaigns and was present at Lee’s surrender at McLean’s house. Throughout the war he kept extensive notes that capture Grant’s conversations as well as his own observations of military life.

Porter was at Appomattox as a brevet brigadier general, and this work, written from notes taken in the field, is his eyewitness account of the great struggle between Lee and Grant that led to the defeat of the Confederacy.

As a close-up observer of Grant in the field, Porter was also able to draw a finely detailed, fully realized portrait of this American military hero—his daily acts, his personal traits and habits, and the motives that inspired him in important crises rendered in the language that Grant used at the time.

Porter intended to bring readers into such intimate contact with the Union commander that they could know him as well as those who served by his side. He acquits himself admirably in this undertaking, giving us a moving human document and a remarkable perspective on a crucial chapter of American history.

We also hear of Grant’s dealings with Lincoln, of the close relationship between Sherman and Grant, and of Lee’s noble bearing at his surrender. This is a stirring account that brings to life our country’s most memorable conflict.