Five Forks
Five Forks: Waterloo of the Confederacy
Robert Alexander
Copyright Date: 2003
Published by: Michigan State University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt7ztcf3
Search for reviews of this book
Book Info
Five Forks
Book Description:

The Battle of Five Forks was one of the the last battles of the American Civil War. A week later, Lee surrendered. Two weeks later, Lincoln was dead. In this meditation on that battle, Alexander juxtaposes the story of the battle, which he tells through narrative, letters, and journal entries, with his own impressions, viewing the South through Northern eyes. In addition, he views contemporary American society through the story of the Civil War and specifically through the story of Five Forks. If it is true that we meet our past coming to us out of the future, then, Alexander posits, America is still grappling with issues unresolved by the Civil War. Those issues are not just the obvious ones of race and class, or of North vs. South, but also the more ephemeral issues surrounding the mythos Americans live by.Alexander is not a historian, and this is much more a literary work than a battle story. However, the immediacy with which Alexander tells his tale leads the reader to experience Five Forks-the land, the smells, the cries-as if present there in 1865. Thus, he does not just describe a battle; he captures the spirit of all battles, all wars.

eISBN: 978-1-60917-455-2
Subjects: History
You do not have access to this book on JSTOR. Try logging in through your institution for access.
Log in to your personal account or through your institution.
Table of Contents
Export Selected Citations Export to NoodleTools Export to RefWorks Export to EasyBib Export a RIS file (For EndNote, ProCite, Reference Manager, Zotero, Mendeley...) Export a Text file (For BibTex)
Select / Unselect all
  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. I-X)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. XI-XII)
  3. Preface
    Preface (pp. XIII-XIV)
    Robert Alexander
  4. 1 Springtime in Virginia
    1 Springtime in Virginia (pp. 3-16)

    It’s springtime now in Virginia and the forsythia is sprouting and the dogwood flowering, splashes of yellow and red and white. There are great expanding buds on the trees, mourning doves lowing in the loblolly pines, cardinals among the cherry blossoms, green magnolias, mists in the dawn . . . and when the sun gets above the trees the pine woods smell warm and sweet. April 1st is cloudless after days of rain. A mockingbird sings in the bright clear morning.

    Five Forks could be anywhere, just a country crossroads. It could be anywhere: a fine day out in the...

  5. 2 A Cocked Hat
    2 A Cocked Hat (pp. 17-54)

    Picture, if you will, the map of Virginia. By 1864, the western counties form a separate state—and Virginia, like a cocked hat, sits astride the South. Toward the hat’s peak is the District of Columbia, flower of a nation, just barely out of reach of the Southern army. At the center of the hat of Virginia, where the brain would be in more peaciful times, sits Richmond, Capital of the Confederacy...

  6. 3 The Fighting Has Just Begun
    3 The Fighting Has Just Begun (pp. 55-90)

    The fluorescent lighting and climate-controlled hiss of the air-conditioning surround me as I sit with the Virginia Historical Society library’s century-old magazines. The war, I’m beginning to realize, was fought and refought year after year, in print or over a couple of drinks, as long as two veterans survived to argue about what had really happened and why. “The war is over,” they said, “but the fighting has just begun.” These voices speak to me from the pages ofConfederate Veteranand theSouthern Historical Society Papers.This spring morning, the peace and light of the library and the comforting hiss of the air conditioner are a long way from battle....

  7. 4 Five Forks
    4 Five Forks (pp. 91-128)

    Brigadier General Thomas Taylor Munford commands Fitzhugh Lee’s division of cavalry at Five Forks, on Pickett’s left flank. As it turns out, these are the only troops standing between Pickett and disaster—and they are only able to delay disaster for a couple of hours. In so doing they allow Pickett and his cavalry commander Fitz Lee time to picnic across Hatcher’s Run with their friend Tom Rosser, whose own division of cavalry is back that day guarding the wagons, and who has invited his colleagues to share his fresh fire-baked shad and apple brandy, rare delicacies in this spring of ’65....

  8. 5 Calhoun’s Monument
    5 Calhoun’s Monument (pp. 129-140)

    The sun has set in Virginia. This fine spring day is drawing to a close. The limpid light is fading, the air soft and faintly sweet-smelling But the afternoon that was so perfect for a picnic, the first really nice day if the year, has been disturbed by the mayhem if battle, the rolling thunder of artillery and rifle fire. Men have been murdering each other up and down these woods and fields. And now, with darkness, it’s coming to an end. Vastly superior Federal forces have defeated Pickett’s Confederates. It’s over....

  9. Notes
    Notes (pp. 141-150)
  10. Sources
    Sources (pp. 151-156)
  11. Acknowledgments
    Acknowledgments (pp. 157-158)
Michigan State University Press logo