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

Bob Souer gives a more than competent narration of this account of the final months of the American Civil War. —AudioFile

“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…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…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 (starred review)

“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