The Spring 2014 ECWS Titles: “Hurricane from the Heavens”

Hurricane from the Heavens: The Battle of Cold Harbor will continue the story of the 1864 Overland Campaign as started by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White in Season of Slaughter: The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Slated for a May 2014 release, Hurricane will be on bookshelves in time for the 150th anniversary of the battle.

“We are looking at the culmination of one of the most famous events of the Civil War, the Overland Campaign,” says Dan: 

Focusing on Cold Harbor allows us to examine how warfare changed in 1864. It gives us the opportunity to look at the actions of Ulysses S. Grant and put them within the context of Grant’s overall experience in the war. This will allow us to illustrate how Grant applied the lessons he learned in the Western Theater against Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. 

“The Battle of Cold Harbor signals the end of the Overland Campaign, which matched two of the greatest generals in American History against each other,” Phill adds:

The bloody month-long Overland Campaign showed the changing landscape of warfare during the American Civil War in 1864. Unfortunately, the engagement at Cold Harbor has been dominated by the “Grant the Butcher” myth, which has detracted from the significance of what happened at this crossroads town in eastern Virginia. This book aims to dispel that myth and bring to light the struggle, bloodshed, and destruction that marked the Battle of Cold Harbor.”

Hurricane from the Heavens is the second book Dan and Phill will have contributed to the Emerging Civil War Series. Their first, Bloody Autumn: The 1864 Valley Campaign, is due in late November.