Back Door to Richmond

Résumé du livre

"Drawing upon hundereds of sources, including over sixty unpublished accounts, Back Door to Richmond is the first book-length study of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign. As such, it significantly modifies the standard interpretation of the campaign, which held that the Federal effort was an abject failure, caused almost entirely by the blundering of an incompetent Benjamin Butler, who allowed his army to be "bottled up" by a smaller Confederate force. Robertson shows that Butler's operations instead achieved a significant degree of success by gaining an important base, disrupting Confederate supply lines for nearly two weeks, and distracting 20,000 Confederate troops until late May. Butler's inability to achieve more lofty goals must therefore be shared by Grant, whose concept of the campaign remained confused throughout, and by Butler's principal subordinates, whose contentious behavior caused numerous tactical errors. In sum, Back Door to Richmond provides a new view of an important, yet usually neglected or misunderstood Civil War campaign. It represents a major reassessment of a crucial event in Benjamin Butler's military career and casts a new light on the generalship of Grant and Beauregard. It also provides further evidence fo the technological revolution sweeping nineteenth-century military affairs.