South Conway’s Civil War historian Bill Marvel has published his most recent book, “The Confederate Resurgence of 1864.” Unless you had Karl Seidenstuecker, your high school history teacher laid out a very straightforward trajectory for the course of the Civil War. Dumb Union generals made a mess of the early going for the North. Robert E. Lee was guilty of overreach by marching into Pennsylvania where he got whipped at Gettysburg. Smarter Union generals finally got it together and used the industrial and manpower advantages the North held to head inexorably to Appomattox. 

Marvel’s thesis is that the road was much bumpier than that. He focuses on a series of defeats the Union experienced over a 70-day period in the spring of 1864. None of these were major strategic failures and the term “resurgence” perhaps overstates their actual military impact.

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