Battered Stars

Grant's 1864 Overland Campaign from Brandy Station, VA, to Petersburg involved 100,000 men, 40-days, the battles of Second Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor, the Army of the Potomac, and a two-to-one casualty margin compared to the Confederates. Coffin weaves together stories of the participating military units, outlines the overall campaign, and gives voice to several hundred personalities on the battlefield and back home, primarily through diaries and letters. The family correspondence gives a glimpse into small-town Vermont life as well as life at the front.

Howard Coffin, former press secretary to U.S. senator Jim Jeffords, is the author of The Battered Stars, Full Duty, Guns Over the Champlain Valley, and Nine Months to Gettysburg. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont.