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Joan Waugh’s essay examines the arc of General Francis Channing Barlow’s Civil War, from enlistment as a private in April 1861 through his promotion to major general in 1865. She argues that he can be understood through the prism of his background—a Republican born in New York, reared in Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard. Cynical, pessimistic, and often critical of his commanders, Barlow sometimes doubted Union victory though he devoted himself completely to the cause, suffering two potentially career-ending wounds. By the summer of 1864, when he commanded a division in General Winfield Scott Hancock’s Union Second Corps, both mental and physical fatigue had taken their toll, leaving Barlow at his lowest point as the Army of the Potomac settled in for the siege of Petersburg.

William Bergen argues that such a turn-around occurred only once Grant was able to institute his own aggressive brand of warfare with the armies of the James and Potomac – once he finally, and completely, took command. But such was not an easy task. Unlike Lee who had command of a single army – and had led that army for two years by the time of the Overland Campaign – as general in chief, Grant commanded all the Union forces while accompanying an unfamiliar army in an unfamiliar region. He would first need to get to know his various armies and commanders, and equally important, break the culture of caution that had developed in the Union’s largest and most visible army, the Army of the Potomac. Finally freed from political constraints after the presidential election in November 1864, Grant appointed army and corps commanders who matched his style and temperament thus enabling him to shape the Union forces that would succeed in one final campaign.

This chapter examines the Army of the Potomac on the eve of the campaign. It analyzes the factors that led soldiers to recover their enthusiasm for the war after the bitter reverse at Fredericksburg in mid-December 1862 and the “Mud March” the following month. Covering issues ranging from the quality of rations and the men's response to emancipation and to the possible enrollment of black men as northern soldiers, it portrays an army that possessed remarkable recuperative powers. The role of politics in shaping the army's high command stands in sharp relief. The chapter makes a strong case that caution in discussing volatile political issues counted for more than effective leadership on the battlefield in determining who received assignments to lead the eight Federal corps.

Elements of the Army of the Potomac disengaged from Lee at Cold Harbor to cross the James River and approach Petersburg. Gordon C. Rhea’s essay takes a fresh, and somewhat revisionist, look at Grant’s celebrated movement. Describing the withdrawal from Cold Harbor as well planned and executed, Rhea nonetheless believes many historians have praised it too fulsomely. Logistical elements of the movement could gone been better, and Grant should have made the initial effort against Petersburg with more than two corps and provided better overall leadership—either his or George G. Meade’s--when fighting began on June 15. Because of lapses at the moment of truth, the striking accomplishment of crossing the James before Lee knew what was happening achieved only meager results.

This essay explores how Philip Sheridan's operations during the Appomattox campaign represented the culmination of an evolutionary process of the Union cavalry arm in the East from 1861 though the spring of 1865. Sheridan's aggressive style of command and gradual maturation proved central to its success. There were other senior cavalry officers in the Army of the Potomac who might have commanded the Cavalry Corps in 1864 including Alfred Pleasonton or David McMurtie Gregg. But Sheridan’s ascendancy and his leadership style ultimately restored a measure of fluidity to military operations in Virginia that had evaporated in the Overland Campaign. With an independent command in the Shenandoah Valley during the fall of 1864, Sheridan had deployed infantry in conjunction with the cavalry units, many of which carried Spencer repeating carbines – a tactic that would prove key as Federal forces pursued Lee’s army the following spring.

This chapter describes George G. Meade's appointment as commander of the Army of the Potomac on 28 June 1863. The fate of the nation was in his hands and could be decided in a single impending battle that was almost certainly to be fought within hours or days. The Army of Northern Virginia had crossed the Potomac and had taken Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and was threatening Harrisburg. Only the Army of the Potomac could bring it to bay. If the Federal army engaged the Confederate host in battle and defeated it, all might be well; but a defeat of the Army of the Potomac might result in the Confederate seizure of Washington, Baltimore, or even Philadelphia and could conceivably create a political climate that would lead to an independent Confederacy.

This chapter uses the concept of “military effectiveness” to search for insights into how men performed under stressful conditions. Employing a comparative framework, it explores such factors as quality of leadership, weather, personal hygiene, infusion of replacement troops, lack of sleep, construction of earthworks, and the nature of combat, which ranged from all-out assaults to sniping and skirmishing. It finds remarkable resiliency within the ranks of both armies as soldiers came to terms with changing styles of warfare. In the context of May 1864, however, the Army of Northern Virginia maintained a somewhat higher degree of military effectiveness than the Army of the Potomac.

This chapter discusses what northerners expected from Grant and the Army of the Potomac and how they reacted to the carnage of early May. Weary of Lee's ability to thrash the republic's largest army and to escape crippling defeat when seemingly vulnerable (as after Antietam and Gettysburg), the northern public saw in Grant a new champion who could meet the wily rebel on even terms. They hungered not only for success in Virginia, but also for a climactic Napoleonic victory that would sweep away two years of frustration and open the way to Richmond and reunion. When Grant could not supply that type of triumph in the Wilderness or at Spotsylvania the following week, newspapers failed to convey the full story of what had happened in the bitter woods of the Rapidan and Rappahannock valleys.

Many African Americans were reliable guides as the army advanced toward Richmond in May 1862. This chapter discusses how the mostly positive contacts between the Army of the Potomac and Peninsula blacks dramatically increased the number of runaways willing to aid the Union cause.

The winter and spring of 1864 brought new faces to top positions in the Army of the Potomac's mounted arm. Philip H. Sheridan, who had forged a successful record as an infantry division commander in the Western Theater, replaced Alfred Pleasonton in charge of the Cavalry Corps, and James Harrison Wilson took over one of the three divisions in the corps. Although considerable renown lay ahead for both men, this chapter demonstrates that they failed badly in their assigned roles at the Wilderness. Together Sheridan and Wilson committed enough errors to compromise the entire Union effort.

This chapter describes the assembly of General Meade's corps. With the arrival of the Sixth Corps nearly all of the infantry of the Army of the Potomac was at hand. The march of over thirty miles was one of the epic feats of the campaign. In retrospect it can be said that the addition of this large number of fine soldiers to the ranks of the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg further tipped the scales in its favor and made a victory for General Lee highly improbable.

Just as the German soldiers in the Eleventh Corps began to recover from the shock of their losses and attempted to reorganize their shattered regiments in the days after the battle, they were attacked again, this time by their own comrades in the Army of the Potomac. Non-Germans in the Eleventh Corps itself railed against the “damn Dutch”, but because of their own experiences in the battle and proximity to the Germans many of their vituperations were either qualified or muted. The most vocal denunciations emanated from soldiers of other corps, especially the Third and Twelfth, which had to be hastily thrown in to stem the faltering Confederate advance late on the night of the second of May. A few Anglo American soldiers who knew them well defended the Germans, but the much more widespread name-calling and scapegoating continued right up to the beginning of the Gettysburg campaign. Indeed, the reputation of German American soldiers in the eyes of their comrades in the eastern theater would never recover.

As both armies made extensive use of black laborers to prepare for the coming battle, Northerners learned that the Confederates were effectively using black labor to hold off the Army of the Potomac. Although the Army of the Potomac outnumbered the Confederates, General Robert E. Lee felt secure enough behind his strengthened fortifications to use most of his army to strike at the detachment of the Army of the Potomac that was north of the Chickahominy River. As Mc-Clellan became convinced that he could no longer maintain a position north of the Chickahominy River, the Union commander completely surrendered the initiative to Lee.

This chapter discusses the prevalent opinions after the failed campaign of the Army of the Potomac. As they reflected on the failed campaign, Northerners would come to agree with that the contributions that African Americans had made to both armies, coupled with the failure of Mc-Clellan's Peninsula Campaign, played a role in turning many Northerners in favor of emancipation. As the depressed and overworked soldiers pondered why they had failed to capture Richmond, some blamed the War Department and the White House for not sending Mc-Clellan's requested reinforcements. Some agreed that the failure to reinforce the Army of the Potomac was part of an abolitionist plot to ensure that the war would not end until the government saw the necessity of freeing the slaves.

As the war drew to a close in Virginia, veterans from both armies collected relics to validate their service to their respective causes. They gathered many different objects, such as tree branches, paper currency, paper documents, army boots, battle flags, and jewelry. But the Confederate keepsakes could serve another, more dire purpose, by underscoring racial solidarity among whites in the postwar South.

This chapter discusses General Mc-Clellan siege operations at Yorktown. When Union troops entered Yorktown, the soldiers gained a new appreciation for the Peninsula's black community. The chapter highlights the developing relationship between fugitive slaves and the Army of the Potomac during the Yorktown siege. Blacks performed most of the labor on building fortifications that now stood between the Army of the Potomac and Richmond.

Civil War soldiers understood that what thy saved would help shape historical memories and influence public meanings for years to come. Civil War soldiers were always intrigued by the relics, but their craving for things of war became an obsession during the last weeks of the Confederacy’s existence when both sides were grasping for things to help them remember the past as they transitioned to a future without war.

This chapter presents the letters written by Thomas Henry Carter to his wife Susan between March 17 and December 31, 1864. In these letters, Carter talks about running a camp in winter quarters and granting two-week furloughs on a rotating basis; the report he wrote describing his battalion's activities during the Bristoe and Mine Run Campaigns; his anxiety after he received the news that the Carter family holdings in Madison Parish, Louisiana, had been “stripped” by Union troops; his promotion to colonel; and the injury he sustained at the Battle of Third Winchester. He also describes the meeting between Brigadier General William N. Pendleton and General Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Army of Tennessee, in Dalton, Georgia; the Army of the Potomac's crossing of the Rapidan River; how Carter and his men fended off the attack launched by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Potomac; the Army of the Valley's march to Brown's Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains; and the Battle of Cedar Creek.

After graduation, Tully McCrea travels to Washington and finds he cannot get orders until Congress approves the promotion of him and his classmates as second lieutenants. Almost a month later, an article in the New York Times changes his graduation assignment as General McClellan ordered all artillerymen in the class to be reassigned to the Army of the Potomac. McCrea travels from Washington to Fort Monroe and then up the James River to reach Harrison’s Landing, the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac. This chapter covers camp life and McCrea’s first unit, Company I, First US Artillery, in the Union Second Corps. He soon falls ill, a victim of “swamp sickness” and enters the hospital at Fort Monroe when the Second Corps moved north to Washington in August 1862.

This chapter describes the battle between the Army of the Potomac and Confederate troops. The terrain gained by the Confederates through their assault was limited to that held by Sickles' advanced line. Essentially all of the Army of the Potomac was on the field, its line on Cemetery Ridge remained intact, and its position was stronger than it had been when the Confederate assault began. The Army of the Potomac repelled enemy attacks all along the line and had punished the Confederate attackers severely.