So much for the chesslike maneuvering that supposedly brought Grant and Lee to blows for the first time.
Evidence suggests the fight started almost by accident.
By James F. Epperson T he Overland Campaign of 1864 was unparalleled in all of the war. Casualties were horrendous. When a pause in the fighting finally graced the exhausted foes, they had reached the trenches at Petersburg, where they would see nine more months of bloody stalemate before the war's end. Surprisingly little has been written about the Overland Campaign. What has endured is a substantial amount of misinformation, misconception, and even mythology.