Battle of Trevilian Station with Eyewitness Memoirs - Walbrook Swank - 1994

Description

Battle of Trevilian Station
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The Civil War's Greatest and Bloodiest
All Cavalry Battle -
With Eyewitness Memoirs
by Walbrook D. Swank
Burd Street Press - 1994
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Condition : Softcover.
Shelf stock from a downsizing distributor near me.
Light cover / edge wear, but clean inside.
140 pages, indexed with many illustrations and maps
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The Battle of Trevilian Station (also called Trevilians) was fought on June 11–12, 1864, in Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Union cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan fought against Confederate cavalry under Maj. Gens. Wade Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee in the bloodiest and largest all-cavalry battle of the war.
Sheridan's objectives for his raid were to destroy stretches of the Virginia Central Railroad, provide a diversion that would occupy Confederate cavalry from understanding Grant's planned crossing of the James River, and to link up with the army of Maj. Gen. David Hunter at Charlottesville. Hampton's cavalry beat Sheridan to the railroad at Trevilian Station and on June 11 they fought to a standstill. Brig. Gen. George A. Custer entered the Confederate rear area and captured Hampton's supply train, but soon became surrounded and fought desperately to avoid destruction.
On June 12, the cavalry forces clashed again to the northwest of Trevilian Station, and seven assaults by Brig. Gen. Alfred T. A. Torbert's Union division were repulsed with heavy losses. Sheridan withdrew his force to rejoin Grant's army. The battle was a tactical victory for the Confederates and Sheridan failed to achieve his goal of permanently destroying the Virginia Central Railroad or of linking up with Hunter. Its distraction, however, may have contributed to Grant's successful crossing of the James River.
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This combined narrative and documentary collection is the most complete account yet published of the greatest battle that cavalry fought without infantry or artillery support in the Civil War. That intense struggle between approximately 5,000 Confederate and 8,000 Union cavalrymen, who fought mostly dismounted, comes alive through the many eyewitness accounts included in this study. On two hot days in June 1864, Major General Wade Hampton prevented Major General Philip Sheridan and his numerically superior, better-equipped troops from damaging the Virginia Central Railroad which carried provisions and war material from the Shenandoah Valley to General Robert E. Lee's army around Richmond. Hampton also kept Sheridan from joining other forces that could have attacked Richmond from the west. In turn, Sheridan kept Hampton from harassing the Army of the Potomac as it crossed the James River. Important for both sides, this battle of June 11-12, 1864, here receives the attention it has deserved for so long.
Col. Walbrook Swank wrote 23 books on the Civil War. His works are well regarded and many were on subjects not covered by other authors.
In this work, he pulled together many first hand recollections of the battle, giving a life to the battle that your average historian might not otherwise provide.
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