Their Last Full Measure: The Final Days of the Civil War

by Joseph Wheelan

Overview

Dramatic developments unfolded during the first months of 1865 that brought America's bloody Civil War to a swift climax.

As the Confederacy crumbled under the Union army's relentless "hammering," Federal armies marched on the Rebels' remaining bastions in Alabama, the Carolinas, and Virginia. General William T. Sherman's battle-hardened army conducted a punitive campaign against the seat of the Rebellion, South Carolina, while General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant sought to break the months-long siege at Petersburg, defended by Robert E. Lee's starving Army of Northern Virginia.

In Richmond, Confederate President Jefferson Davis struggled to hold together his unraveling nation while simultaneously sanctioning diplomatic overtures to bid for peace. Meanwhile, President Abraham Lincoln took steps to end slavery in the United States forever.

Their Last Full Measure relates these thrilling events, which followed one on the heels of another, from the battles ending the Petersburg siege and forcing Lee's surrender at Appomattox to the destruction of South Carolina's capital, the assassination of Lincoln, and the intensive manhunt for his killer. The fast-paced narrative braids the disparate events into a compelling account that includes powerful armies; leaders civil and military, flawed and splendid; and ordinary people, black and white, struggling to survive in the war's wreckage.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306823619
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	03/24/2015
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Joseph Wheelan is the author of nine previous books, including the highly-acclaimed books Terrible Swift Sword and Midnight in the Pacific. Before turning to writing books full time, Wheelan was a reporter and editor for the Associated Press for twenty-four years. He lives in Cary, North Carolina.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Their Last Full Measure

"It may have been apparent to many by January 1865 that the war between Union and Confederacy was winding down to an inevitable denouement, but to the men in the armies and the exhausted citizens at home, the New Year promised only new trauma on new battlefields. Joseph Wheelan's Their Last Full Measure ably re-creates those feelings of dread and anticipation, and growing inevitability, in portraits and words of the men and women who lived those final months. His descriptions of the horrors of combat on the field, and the often-hidden battles among the presidents, cabinets, and congresses, are dramatically portrayed in a narrative that never loses pace or interest."—William C. Davis, award-winning author of Crucible of Command

"Their Last Full Measure is a fine synthesis of the events of 1865, the final days of the Civil War. Whether you are well-read in Civil War history or a novice, this book is highly recommended."—Civil War News

"[A] thoroughly researched, engagingly written drama."—Roanoke Times

"[A] vivid narrative."—Military Officer

From the Publisher

Beginning with the January 1865 assault on Fort Fisher in North Carolina and ending with the May 1865 Grand Review of the Armies in Washington, Bob Souer gives a more than competent narration of this account of the final months of the American Civil War. Focusing on events in Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia, Wheelan’s account is fast paced and portrays the leaders of the U.S.A. and the C.S.A. in all their glory and warts. The common soldier and civilian are also depicted as they struggle to survive the calamity they find themselves in. Souer’s baritone voice is steady and somewhat staccato in delivery. His reading sounds more like the presentation of a report than the narration of a book but still captures the listener’s attention. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2015 - AudioFile

★ 2015-03-11
First-rate study of the often overlooked closing months of the Civil War, which, though the impending end was visible, saw some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict. So desperate was Confederate resistance, writes former Associated Press editor Wheelan (Bloody Spring: Forty Days that Sealed the Confederacy's Fate, 2014, etc.), that in the late winter of 1865, it did the unthinkable: it enlisted African-Americans into the army, conferring "the rights of a freedman" on anyone who signed up. Hearing the news, Abraham Lincoln rightly remarked that the South was done, "and we can now see the bottom." It helped the Union cause that the generals under Ulysses Grant were committed to a program of total war. As Wheelan notes, William Tecumseh Sherman had earlier "held the conventional view that war was between armies and did not involve civilians," but a spell in Tennessee convinced him otherwise—and even in surrender, many Southerners vowed to continue hating their Northern foes. "Hatred was practically all that remained for many former Confederates," Wheelan sagely writes, for the South lay in utter ruin. The author capably traces the closing military campaign in Virginia, with Robert E. Lee's fast-dwindling army encircled by a vastly superior Union force, and he examines the lesser-known theaters that remained, including pockets of resistance in the Deep South and Texas. At the same time, he writes critically, by way of foreshadowing, of the failure of Reconstruction, which would follow the North's perhaps-too-lenient policies of repatriation of former Confederate leaders, some of whom quickly returned to Congress. Particularly interesting are Wheelan's occasional forays into speculation: what might have happened had Lee fought a strictly defensive war? Is there any way the South might have prevailed? Wheelan has combed entire libraries to make this thoroughly readable, lucid survey. Well-practiced buffs will welcome the book, but novices can approach it without much background knowledge, too.

Kirkus Reviews