Strategy & Tactics Quarterly 27 - Grands Overland Campaign

The Union Army of the Potomac's hard-fought campaign from the tangled forest of the Wilderness just south of the Rapidan River to the James River in the spring and summer of 1864 was the climatic struggle in Virginia during the American Civil War. Hard fought military operations such as the Wilderness (May 5-6), Spotsylvania (May 7-12), the North Anna (May 13-25), and Cold Harbor (May 26-3) traced the bloody path that would ultimately lead Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to defend the Confederate capital of Richmond, thus forfeiting the advantage of maneuver to counter the Army of the Potomac's superiority in numbers and material.