Overland Campaign

In May 1864, Ulysses S. Grant crossed the Rapidan with the Army of the Potomac and began a continuous campaign against Robert E. Lee. Battles in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Court House produced heavy casualties without a decisive breakthrough.

Grant repeatedly moved south and east rather than retreating, forcing Lee towards Richmond. The campaign continued through the North Anna and Cold Harbor before the Union army crossed the James River.

This context supports fiction about Grant, Lee, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the shift towards sustained attritional warfare during the final year of the American Civil War.