By Ralph Peters
In a series of battles between May 4 & June 24, 1864 the
Army of the Potomac directed by Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and
commanded by Major General George G. Meade clashed with the Army of Northern
Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, in what would later become known
as The Overland Campaign. The ferocity
and near daily combat during those two months shocked the divided and warring
nation. The combined casualties of both armies totaled over 88,000 men killed,
wounded, captured or missing. It was the
last year of the war, a baptism of fire that lasted four long years, the beginning
of its cataclysmic end, that would forge a new, united nation from its warring
factions.
Best-selling author, Ralph Peters, uses the backdrop of The
Overland Campaign for his novel, “Hell or Richmond.” From the battles at The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania
Court House to The Battle of Cold Harbor Peters graphically covers much of The
Overland Campaign.
Officers such as Ulysses S Grant, General-in-Chief of the
United States Army; Major General George G. Meade, commander of the Army of the
Potomac; and Francis Channing Barlow, the Union’s Harvard-valedictorian “boy
general,” as well as Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Major General John
Brown Gordon, and William C. Oates, Colonel of the 15th Alabama Infantry take
their places in Mr. Peters’ narrative beside the enlisted men of both armies.
Historical fiction fills the gaps where its counterpart,
nonfiction, cannot go. Peters’ narrative
breathes life into his the men of our historical past, and viscerally reveals
the life of a civil war soldier before, during and after a battle; the hunger, the
dirt and grime, the smell, the blood and gore.
Where more often than not historical fiction authors fail, Peters excels
and does not hold back with his bloody and gory descriptions of wounds received
by 18th century projectiles. His dialogue
is sometimes salty and profane, but nevertheless rings true of combat veterans.
Ralph Peters’ “Hell or Richmond” masterfully combines
descriptive narrative and coarse dialogue which doesn’t sound as if had been
vetted for a prime-time television viewing audience, and successfully transports
his 21st century readers to the unpleasantness of the summer of 1864 Virginia.
ISBN 978-0765330482, Forge Books, © 2013, Hardcover, 544
pages, Maps, $25.99. To purchase this book click HERE.
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